DEI here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will save this post until January, 2023 when the GA legislature begins session

Breitbart News and several other outlets ran a story “Stacey Abrams: Illegal Migrants Should Get Cheap College Slots” last week on the fact that Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has advanced the “we want instate tuition for illegal aliens in public colleges” campaign ploy for the “progressive” voters.

From Breitbart:

“My first belief is that if you finish high school, you should be able to attend any college to which you are qualified to attend, no matter what your documentation says .. [because] we are growing the next generation of leaders,” Abrams told an audience Wednesday at Valdosta State University.”

Most pro-enforcement Americans recognize that offering any sort of reward or encouragement to any form of illegal immigration serves to encourage more illegal immigration. Pro-enforcement Americans should fight everything that encourages illegal immigration.

A video  of the 2018 runner-up in the race for Georgia governor spouting her support for instate tuition for illegals featured in the Breitbart piece tagged as being a product of the “GOP War Room.” I can’t be sure who exactly runs the GOP War Room but it looks like somebody from the Republican side who “stalks” the Abrams campaign made it in an effort to illustrate her willingness to reward illegal aliens and put them in front of Americans in America.

Related: The average tuition & fees for Colleges in Georgia is $4,739 for in-state and $17,008 for out-of-state #HB120 #HB 932

In the heat of the race for governor, Abrams position  is rightly depicted as being too far out on the left for sensible Georgia voters. We agree. But we note (along with Breitbart writer Neil Munro in the above report) that the fact it was Republicans who advanced legislation under Georgia’s Capitol Gold Dome in the last several years to change state law in order to reward illegal aliens with instate tuition while American and legal immigrant students from other states would still be forced to pay the much higher tuition rates. Last year’s edition of this tuition sell out was HB 120 from Dalton Rep Kasey Carpenter. And Republicans – including Rome Rep Katie Dempsey – who voted to advance HB 120 out of the House Higher Education Committee. Only the spread of too much information from the Dustin Inman Society stopped the bill from going to the floor. It was a Republican who introduced HB 932 that would have changed state law so that refugees, Special Visa Immigrants and some other foreigners could bypass the existing one year wait on accessing instate tuition in our public colleges after they had “migrated” to Georgia. Americans who move to Georgia would still be required to wait for a year to get the much cheaper rates.

We write this up merely to illustrate that for Republicans in September of 2022 the concept that a radical, far-left Democrat advocating that instate tuition be given to illegal aliens is viewed as a very bad idea to be rejected by voters.

We’ll save this for January, 2023 when the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the far left again push their demand that the Republican-controlled legislature give instate tuition to illegal aliens.

• • Update: Aug 20, 2022: Half of US companies gearing up for layoffs, survey suggests

    

    WABE (NPR)

    Is there a bipartisan fix to Georgia’s labor woes?

    Georgia’s congressional delegation remains deeply divided, politically, but they are in agreement on one thing: the state needs more workers.

    Members of congress from both parties spoke Tuesday in Macon, in an event hosted by the Georgia Chamber.

    Republican Rep. Buddy Carter, who represents the state’s 1^stCongressional District, says Georgia’s worker shortage is not hard to miss.

    “Ride down the road, you see ‘Help Wanted’ signs everywhere,” Carter said. “You see businesses closing early and cutting back on their business hours because they don’t have the help.”

    Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, a Democrat, says a significant reason for this labor shortage is the steep drop in immigration over the last six year…

    Read there entire report from the liberal WABE News here.

     

 

 

Partial update: They passed. Voting records on both bills described below,  HB 34 and HB 268. More coming along with entire list of House members to whom I sent “heads up” warnings about these two pieces of legislation long before they voted.

ATTENTION REPUBLICAN SENATORS: UPDATE March 11, 2021 8:54 AM: Easy way to amend to insure belt and suspenders care: “Nothing contained in this Code section shall be construed to invalidate, override, or amend any licensing compact entered into by the State of Georgia or to permit the issuance of a license without verification under Code Section 50-36-1.“ Which is what Sen Thompson did on SB 45, lines 48 & 49.

“Reciprocity”

Professional licenses are public benefits in Georgia. The Georgia Chamber of Commerce is well aware of that fact as they opposed the law that created it. I was there.

We have been here before, just a few weeks ago: (“Libertarian pushed Gold Dome ‘reciprocity’ bill…”) would dismantle screening process for illegal aliens accessing professional licenses.”)

The people who run Georgia are tired of the “mo’ money” delays involved in the process of verifying lawful immigration status of applicants for public benefits.

Georgia law (OCGA 50-36-1) put in place in 2006 and improved several times after that says that applicants for public benefits must swear they are either U.S.citizen or an eligible alien on a notarized affidavit. They are supposed to show “Secure and Verifiable ID” Then, that lawful presence status is supposed to be checked in a federal database called SAVE  (SAVE is not doing their job correctly and we will expose that fact after session). But the state law still stands. Professional licenses are public benefits. Contrary to the mislabeling by numerous state and local departments that administer public benefits, this is not a “citizenship affidavit” – but a verification affidavit. One need not be a U.S. citizen to qualify for benefits, merely a lawfully present alien.

The Georgia Chamber of Commerce is asking House members to vote yes on at least two bills, HB 34 and HB 268. While we have not had time to carefully study these bills (update, Feb 27. we were correct on initial analysis), a quick appraisal tells us they are designed to provide “reciprocity” with other states on professional licenses – and to skip the verification process described above.

If an individual who has a license to be an occupational therapist in California, for example, moves to Georgia the plan is eliminate much of the licensing process here to put this person to work almost instantly – and to bypass the Georgia law for immigration verification.

These bills are apparently on the Rules calendar today. I have notified several members with the below and they tell me they will now vote “no”  – and that author (s) are not aware of existing law.

_

Sent to several members and to Kim in the Speaker’s office this morning:

“After a very quick look: HB 34 has no language I can see that requires compliance with OCGA 50-36-1 (verification of lawful presence for public benefits). Professional licenses are public benefits . A yes vote is a vote to dismantle existing law on illegal immigration. In a state with more illegals than AZ. The senate will take careful note of that fact. I promise.  A 30 second “isn’t it true” question should wake people up?   I assume same for Chamber of Commerce HB 268. Reciprocity write up here.

Unless I have missed it in a big hurry, here they all need: “Nothing contained in this Code section shall be construed to invalidate, override, or  amend any licensing compact entered into by the State of Georgia or to permit the issuance  of a license without verification under Code Section 50-36-1.”

Updated – Libertarian pushed Gold Dome ‘reciprocity’ bill (HB147) would dismantle screening process for illegal aliens accessing professional licenses *UPDATED WITH ADDITION OF IDENTICAL SENATE BILL (SB45) INFO

Military spouse not automatically legal immigrant. Wash Post story:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/this-army-veteran-served-his-country-will-his-undocumented-wife-be-deported/2017/03/29/c60429c8-09bf-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html

–

Below are two letters put on House member’s desks on the floor today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education for state legislators 

• Update, 8:15PM: After posting this today and sending it to the Republican members of the Senate and House, I learned there was a (surprise!) 2:30 PM hearing on the below bill. I hurried to Downtown Atlanta and made it to the hearing room before the Senate Education and Youth committee meeting began. I was the first person to sign up to speak on the bill. The chairman of the committee is Senator Clint Dixon, Republican, Buford. Knowing that I would spill the beans on the bill, Dixon began calling names to speak from the bottom of the list.

  

• When he got to number two on the list, Dixon told the room “the audience isn’t going to like this, but comments are over” “I know the audience is not going to like this. We are under extreme time constraints and we are going to end the public comment now.”
• I was prevented from speaking and offering an experienced and educated analysis of the phony immigration part of the legislation. I was cancelled by the Chamber of Commerce Republicans.  The Republicans passed out the bill. Senator Ed Setzler made the motion “do pass.” It should be noted that Dolezal was careful to avoid any mention of illegal immigration in his presentation.

____________________________

We judge the bill to be un-American in its current iteration.

Georgia Promise Scholarship Act (2023 version) Senator Greg Dolezal, lead sponsor. See cosponsors here.

SB 233         LC 49 1349

Note: All of the obvious problems outlined below can easily be resolved by using already offered language that clearly and openly limits benefits for, access to and authority over the use of state funds for K-12 scholarships to U.S. citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents (green card holders) who have submitted documents proving that status. I was asked for this draft language in 2022 and sent it to senior House members then. I received no reply. I have since traded emails with Sen. Greg Dolezal on that draft language and know that he has read it and finds “language like this “appropriate.” He has declined to respond to two requests for a meeting. Coming soon: Sen. Dolezal and his campaign promises on “sanctuary cities.” dak

• Related: New “school choice” bill in GA Senate would provide state benefit to Biden’s illegally paroled, inadmissible “migrants” – formerly known as “illegal aliens” SB 233

State funds are deposited into a consumer directed account on behalf of a participating student to be used for qualified expenses and distribution is ordered by “parents.”

“Parents”

Parents of the participating K-12 student submit the application (line 84) for the state to send funds to an account set up for the student and ‘promise’ (line 77) to only use the state funds for qualified services – which are basic education of the student.

“Parents” include legal guardians, custodian or “other person” (line 30) with legal authority to act on behalf of the student of the student living in Georgia.

The above definition of “parent” does not exclude illegal aliens.

Georgia media does not usually report that the Biden administration has been shipping “UACs” into the interior of the United States and puts them into the custody of illegal aliens – including in Georgia.

• Related: Fake Families: “Overrun, How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History

According to the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, only six states have a larger population of illegal aliens than Georgia (table 3, page 5). The anti-enforcement GBPI has passed on stats that show we have more illegal aliens than green card holders (pie chart).

The above fact should point out the very real likelihood that if this all becomes law, we will watch as authority to request $6000.00 per year in taxpayer dollars is turned over to illegal alien ‘parents’ who have been awarded the power to order up dispersal of those funds with the ‘promise’ it will be done within the guidelines of the Act.

This brings up another “Act.” The federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that illegal aliens defy. Here we also mention a long list of state and federal laws that illegal aliens violate literally every day – including employment laws and use of false or stolen ID and Social Security numbers. There is no reason to believe the illegal aliens won’t happily take advantage of the lack of security in the current version of SB 233.

Oversight

“Parents” also make up a review committee (line 193) that would have authority to determine the validity of expenses paid for by the “parents” on behalf of the student.  Again, we see the likelihood that illegal aliens could easily be deciding what constitutes an eligible expense and how state funds are used.

“Students”

A “student” is eligible if his “parents” reside in Georgia (line 73).

Considering illegal immigration, when we drill down through the bill’s references to various code sections students  are ineligible (lines 74-76) for the new state benefit under the same guidelines created for Title IX circa 1972 when the world, the U.S. and Georgia were very different places. Title IV noncitizen eligibility here.

The fact that the Biden administration has compromised the integrity of the Title IX eligibility guidelines should not be a reason for Georgia legislators to do join in and do the same in the name of “school choice.”

• Fact on parole: “While individuals who receive a grant of parole are allowed to enter the United States, they are not provided with an immigration status nor are they formally “admitted” into the country for purposes of immigration law.” 

These parameters make hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens from all over the planet who have been illegally granted blanket “parole” by the Biden administration and herded into the U.S. eligible for the proposed “Promise Scholarship” benefits provided by Georgia taxpayers in this version of “school choice” in SB 233. The Biden “parole” scam is ongoing.

As is, SB 233 creates the scenario in which illegal alien/paroled parents can be in charge of dispersing state funds and determination of the eligible use of those funds for payment of private school tuition for paroled (otherwise illegal alien students) eligible.

Statistics taken from official Border patrol reports show that in the period Oct 2021 – Sept 2022 (FY 2022) about 380,000 otherwise illegal aliens were released into the nation under Biden’s (illegal) parole program. Immigration watchdogs are asking “How Long Does Biden’s DHS Wait to Put Paroled Border Migrants into Removal Proceedings?” (see Parole `+ATD in table).

I am working on cobbling numbers together to reflect the number of “parolees” created by Biden from what were previously known as “illegal aliens” in the first five months of FY 2023, but we anticipate those numbers will be similar to FY 2022. Georgia is already a very popular state for illegal “migration.” Offering private school tuition to paroled parents and students will only increase that attractiveness.

Twenty GOP states are challenging Biden’s illegal border parole hustle in a Texas federal court – GA is not one of them.

Appropriations (?)

 Unless I have overlooked it, there is no mention of any caps, limits or “subject to appropriations” disclaimer in the bill. This was not the case in some previous measures aimed at “school choice.” It can be assumed that the intent and expectation is that the state budget will always include provisions to accommodate funding for all eligible students.

At least one previous bill included a lottery system to determine winners and losers in the event there was not sufficient funding to benefit all eligible applicants.  We hope this possibility is made clear to legislators and voters as that scenario creates a possibility of illegal alien ‘parents’ and or paroled students winning that lottery while American students and parents watch them access state benefits that are unavailable to the citizen families.

Please see also: “New “school choice” bill in GA Senate would provide state benefit to Biden’s illegally paroled, inadmissible “migrants” – formerly known as “illegal aliens” SB 233.

Updated, March 2, 2023, 5:45 PM. Removed my personal opinion of Senators Dixon and Dolezal. Added copy on top that SB 233 did not come out of Rules committee.