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Is a hit-and-run driver in Marietta an illegal alien? We may never know — Horacio Lopez-Vail, aka Horacio Lopez Joselito, aka Horacio Joselito Lopez *OCGA 42-4-14

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Horacio Lopez-Vail/Horacio Lopez Joselito: Marietta Daily Journal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update: July 28, 2022: I sent an open records request to the Cobb Sheriff’s office asking for copies of documents that would show compliance with state law on checking immigration status of prisoners and reporting illegal aliens to DHS and received a response. There is no record of compliance with the state law, OCGA 42-4-14.

“No drivers license” is usually the tip-off that a foreign national is an illegal alien.

Booking report from Cobb County (hat tip Bob Trent):

From WSB TV news:

“Lopez-Vail was arrested and charged with

  • Two counts of serious injury by vehicle
  • Two counts of felony hit and run
  • Two counts of failure to maintain lane
  • Driving on the wrong side of the road
  • Duty to report striking a fixed object
  • Tampering with evidence
  • No license
  • Reckless driving
  • ___Here______________

Georgia state law (OCGA 42-4-14) requires all jailers to check immigration status of prisoners and to report illegal aliens to U.S. DHS. The sheriffs in Cobb and Gwinnett counties have publicly admitted they do not obey that law. This defiance of the law by these sheriffs is not “news” in Georgia. See also “not news” in the MDJ.

________________________

Photo: Fox5

Fox5 Atlanta

July 24, 2022

Teen charged in Marietta hit-and-run involving man, child

MARIETTA – Marietta police said officers charged a teenage suspect in an alleged hit-and-run that hospitalized a man and 6-year-old boy.

Police identified the suspect as 19-year-old Horacio Lopez-Vail. Police said Sunday that the man and child were still in critical condition.

 

#Georgiafornia: Another letter to the editor on Gov. Brian Kemp’s defiance on criminal aliens – Marietta Daily Journal

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Candidate Brian Kemp in his big truck – in case he rounds up criminal illegals. Image: The Hill, 2018

Marietta Daily Journal

OPINION

Letters to the editor

Kemp’s broken campaign promise

There is a reason we quit the Georgia Republican Party — and it is centered around the fact that in a state with more illegal aliens than green card holders, illegal immigration has become a forbidden topic in an effort to court the fabled “suburban moderates” and Hispanics. This insulting and dangerous treachery is not going to drive conservative independent voters to the polls in November. Including us.

January 7, 2020

DEAR EDITOR:

In November a male foreign national with an ICE detainer was arrested in Marietta for sexually molesting two teenage boys for years starting when the boys were ages 8 and 9. Just after Christmas another alien with an ICE hold, Juan Antonio Gonzalez, was arrested by Cobb police and booked into the county jail facing six felonies including murder, aggravated assault, fleeing police and possessing a gun during the commission of a crime. We know this because the MDJ reported it. Thank you.

While Gov. Kemp is endlessly boasting of his business-first approach to governing Georgia and the “No. 1 for business” ranking from some magazine, what the MDJ and the rest of the state media are not reporting is that these two examples of vicious crimes by illegal aliens illustrate part of a broken campaign promise from Kemp.

Readers who can remember back to 2018 may recall “Brian Kemp’s Track and Deport Plan” which was a particularly detailed campaign pledge to voters aimed at illegal aliens who commit additional crimes. It went like this: “As governor, conservative businessman Brian Kemp will create a comprehensive database to track criminal aliens in Georgia. He will also update Georgia law to streamline deportations from our jails and prisons.”

We have no hope of Kemp going after the employers who draw the “undocumented” cheap labor into our state. That would upset the business donors. But at our house we have been waiting to see Kemp follow through on his tough talk on illegal alien crime. Including the two examples above, we challenge anyone to find any mention from Kemp — or the Georgia media — of the campaign promise, new laws, tracking criminal aliens or illegal alien databases.

There is a reason we quit the Georgia Republican Party — and it is centered around the fact that in a state with more illegal aliens than green card holders, illegal immigration has become a forbidden topicin an effort to court the fabled “suburban moderates” and Hispanics. This insulting and dangerous treachery is not going to drive conservative independent voters to the polls in November. Including us.

Bill Buckler

Kennesaw

Here.

Marietta, Georgia – Alien now with an ICE detainer charged with molesting at least two boys for years #CriminalAlien #BrianKemp #BigTruck

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Luis Alonso Lopez. Image: Marietta Daily Journal

Cobb County, Georgia

Marietta Daily Journal

November 6, 2019

A Marietta man is in jail facing seven counts of child molestation.

Police say Luis Alonso Lopez, 48, molested at least two boys over a period of at least six years.

According to arrest warrants, a 19-year-old told police he was abused by Lopez from the time he was 8 years old until he was about 14. A 13-year-old boy said Lopez abused him when he was 8 or 9.

The abuse is alleged to have taken place at a residential address off Veterans Memorial Highway in Mableton, not far from the Chattahoochee Technical College’s Austell campus.

You can read the entire story from the Marietta Daily Journal here.

 

Two llegal aliens charged with separate child molestations in Marietta, Georgia in less than a week

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Cesar Chavez – Images, MDJonline.com

From the Marietta Daily Journal

July 10, 2019

“On July 3, police arrested 17-year-old Baudilio Salomon Diaz Ambrocio, who faces three felony charges of rape, aggravated child molestation and aggravated sexual battery in relation to an incident at his Hedges Street home around 5 p.m. on July 1.”

“A young girl was followed and molested outside her Marietta house on July 4 after watching fireworks at Ron Francis Park with her family, police say.

The 12-year-old has spoken publicly about the ordeal, telling media her attacker repeatedly tried to grab and kiss her until her 10-year-old brother scared the man off…” More here.

Baudilio Salomon Diaz Ambrocio MDJonline.com

Defamation: Dustin Inman Society demands correction and apology from the Atlanta Journal Constitution

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‘DEFAMATORY’: Conservative Demands Swing-State Newspaper Retract ‘Hate Group’ Smear

 

From the Daily Signal

Tyler O’Neil

October 22, 2024

D.A. King, an immigration enforcement activist whose defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center is proceeding in court, sent a legal demand letter to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, requesting a correction when the newspaper called his organization an “anti-immigration hate group.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the paper of record in and around Georgia’s capital city, mentioned King’s group, the Dustin Inman Society, as an aside in an Oct. 7 article about Katy Stamper, who won the Democratic primary in Georgia’s 11th Congressional District. Democrats now support a write-in candidate, claiming Stamper won the primary on false pretenses.

“A search of activity under her birth name, Karen Sacandy, which Stamper legally changed in 2019, showed that she previously was aligned with a Marietta-based anti-immigration hate group,” The Journal-Constitution’s Washington correspondent, Tia Mitchell, wrote. Mitchell went on to include links to the Dustin Inman Society’s website, without mentioning the society or explaining why the paper characterized it as an “anti-immigration hate group.”

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The Dustin Inman Society, which advocates enforcing immigration law and combats illegal immigration, has three legal immigrants on its board of advisors: Mary Grabar (from Slovenia); Maria Litland (from Austria); and Sabine Durden-Coulter (from Germany). The society takes its name from a 16-year-old Georgia boy killed in a 2000 car crash caused by an illegal immigrant.

“This smear is an ongoing and retaliatory habit for the staff at the AJC,” King told The Daily Signal in a written statement Friday. “They know it’s false and have had to run corrections many times over the years telling readers that we are aimed at illegal immigration and are not somehow ‘anti-immigration.’”

Where Did AJC Get the Idea?

King is already fighting to restore his reputation in court after one left-leaning organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, branded the Dustin Inman Society a “hate group.”

The SPLC, which routinely brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups” and puts them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, branded the society an “anti-immigrant hate group” in 2018. Yet back in 2011, the SPLC told The Associated Press that it didn’t consider the society a “hate group.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which advocates lessening immigration restrictions, registered a lobbyist to oppose a bill the society supported. The SPLC marked the society as a “hate group” around the same time.

King sued the SPLC for defamation, and a federal judge allowed the lawsuit to move to the discovery process.

As I explain in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” a terrorist used the organization’s “hate map” to attack a conservative Christian nonprofit in Washington, D.C., in 2012, and a former SPLC staffer called the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.” Many defamation lawsuits against the SPLC have failed, however, in part because few plaintiffs before King could prove that the organization had reason to suspect the “hate group” label was false.

 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution didn’t cite the SPLC in its attack on the Dustin Inman Society, and it didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment for this story.

In Competition With the SPLC?

King told The Daily Signal that the newspaper is echoing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s attack but setting itself up as a separate arbiter of “hate.”

“Since we began our battle against illegal immigration here in 2005, the AJC has migrated from merely being biased, liberal and agenda-driven to blooming into apparent competition with the despicable SPLC,” he said. “They have now apparently taken it upon themselves to bypass the leftist establishment smear artists and classify pro-enforcement political opponents who talk back as operating an ‘anti-immigration hate group’ themselves—including those who are immigrants.”

King said the newspaper was engaging in a double standard: condemning his organization as a “hate group” while celebrating those on the Left who advocate amnesty for illegal aliens. He cited the Georgia Association of Elected Officials, which goes by the acronym GALEO and describes itself as focusing “on increasing civic participation of the Latinx community and developing prominent Latino leaders throughout Georgia.”

“In the meantime,” King said of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “they label anti-enforcement, far-left groups such as the notorious GALEO that publicly protest against immigration enforcement as ‘civil rights groups.’”

King also noted that the AJC paid to sponsor the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund gala in 2004. Mario Obledo, MALDEF’s co-founder, had suggested that non-Hispanic, white California residents should move “back to Europe.”

When then-President Bill Clinton gave Obledo the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, a man in the audience asked, “You also made the statement that California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave. Did you say that?”

“I did,” Obledo replied. “They ought to go back to Europe.”

“The AJC has openly promoted open borders and helped this far-left, anti-borders group with fundraising,” King told The Daily Signal. “Just because MALDEF founder Mario Obledo called for Americans who didn’t agree with his plan for California and saying those who didn’t ‘ought to go back to Europe’ didn’t stop AJC from serving as ‘dinner chair’ for a MALDEF funder gala here.”… please read the entire article here.

 

Media request sent to Senator Matt Brass Re: Transfer of CEO, COO & Secretary titles at Peach State Values PAC

By

Senator Matt Brass

 

Senator Brass,

I am writing an educational opinion column focused on the Republican Senate District 20 primary race. To insure accuracy and fairness I am in hopes that you will respond with a quote or comment on your taking over the CEO, COO, and Secretary titles  at the Peach State Values PAC from Senator Larry Walker on April 30, 2024.
In addition to my own widely read blog, I also write in various Georgia newspapers as well as the subscription outlet James Magazine Online, Breitbart and The Federalist.
I would be grateful for a response. My deadline is 5:00 PM today, May 15.
Thank you,
D.A. King
Marietta

Media request sent to GA state Senator Larry Walker Re: Transfer of CEO, COO & Secretary titles at Peach State Values PAC

By

Sen.Larry Walker

The below media request was sent to Senator Larry Walker on May 14, 2024 at 9:48 AM. Walker replied at 2:49 PM. That reply is pasted below my request.

Senator Walker,

I am writing an educational opinion column focused on the Republican Senate District 20 primary race. To insure accuracy and fairness I am in hopes that you will respond with a quote or comment on the fact that Senator Matt Brass took over  CEO, COO, and Secretary  positions at the Peach State Values PAC from you on April 30, 2024. I welcome any other comment or input on the primary contest and the Peach State Values mailers aimed at your opponent, Tori Branum.
In addition to my own widely read blog, I also write in various Georgia newspapers as well as the subscription outlet James Magazine Online, Breitbart and The Federalist.
I would be grateful for a response. My deadline is 5:00 PM today, May 15.
Thank you,
D.A. King
Marietta
___________

Response:”Mr. King,

Please refer any questions you may have regarding Peach State Values to its Chairman, Senator Matt Brass.

Respectfully,

Larry Walker

State Senator, District 20

421-A State Capitol

Atlanta, GA 30334

(404) 656-0095″

Media request sent to GA state Senator Shawn Still today – updated with reply – #SenateDistrict20

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Update: 9:45 May 13: Senator Still was kind enough to reply about 5:15 PM today. That response is pasted on the bottom. He now says he is not a veteran.

I will have more to say about this matter in the coming days. This installment should be regarded as “Part one.”

_____________

The below media request was sent to Senator Still via email to his official Senate address, his Senate assistant’s address and via text message at 11:43AM today.

____

Senator Still,

I plan to write an educational opinion column focused on the facts surrounding your March 5 request to Tori Branum to call you and the ensuing phone conversation in which you inform Branum of your veteran status. As a recording of part of that conversation indicates, you informed Ms. Branum that you were a veteran and “served proudly.”
 
Excerpt:
 
Tori Branum:

“Right, and they’re gonna know me by the time I get done. They’re gonna know me by the time I get done, and if I lose, that’s fine. Hey, it’s practice. But as an American veteran, I have a right to run for office in my country.”

Shawn Still:

“Tori, don’t, don’t ever say that to me again. I am too. I’ve served proudly, and you don’t need to throw that in my face.”

As you likely know, Branum was an active duty U.S. Marine for eight years who attained the rank of Sergeant with an honorable discharge. According to Branum, she is a disabled veteran (70% disability).

As part of a larger piece on Sen. Larry Walker’s reelection campaign and your involvement with Walker and Branum in that contest, my effort here is to gather information on your military experience. To insure accuracy and fairness in my write up, will you kindly tell me in which branch of the U.S. military you served, your first date of active duty service, last day of active service, pay grade/rank upon separation and MOS (Military Occupational Specialty)?

I am hopeful that I can clear up confusion caused by the statements you apparently made to Branum versus the statements you have posted on the your shawnstill.com website in which you seem to explain that “the end of the Cold War” in 1989 -1990 and Bill Clinton’s election to the presidency in 1992 somehow prevented you from becoming a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.

Excerpt:

“STATE SENATOR SHAWN STILL WAS RAISED IN JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA, BY A SINGLE MOM WORKING FOR THE U. S. NAVY. “He attended the University of Alabama as a swimmer and U. S. Air Force ROTC cadet. Diploma in hand and preparing to attend flight school, the end of the Cold War and the election of President Bill Clinton abruptly cancelled Shawn’s plans along with those of most other would-be second lieutenants in the USAF. As a result, he pursued a variety of civilian careers ranging from whitewater raft guide on the Nantahala River to Vice President of Home Healthcare for a national company. The healthcare industry brought him to Atlanta in 1998.”

My deadline is noon, Wednesday, May 15. In addition to my own widely read blog, I write on the statewide, subscription outlet James’s Magazine Online, in various Georgia newspapers, the Washington Times and The Federalist.

I would be grateful for your input and any further information you want to offer that may be relevant to the above.

Thank you in advance for your attention and reply to this request,

D.A. King

Marietta

ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com

The Dustin Inman Society

____

Response from Senator Still:

(in response to a follow up question from here, Still informed me that he graduated from the University of Alabama in May, 1994).

Note: The embedded links are mine.

“DA,

there were things I did out of uniform in which I served our country proudly as a GS employee assigned to NAVSTA Mayport and at sea on several different warships in the 1990s. Not everyone who served our country during the Cold War wore a uniform.

While I didn’t go active duty as an officer after this GS position, I am firm in my belief that I did a great deal of good while there. I will not speak about those details on my website or in an interview.

This is the only statement that I will ever offer about my time in that role.

Considering your background as a Marine, I appreciate that you asked me for clarification and trust that you understand my position on this and cannot speak publicly about anything else I did during that time.”

_

 

Veto needed for GA’s SB 354 from Sen Larry Walker Updated

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  • Update: To none’s surprise, Gov. Kemp quietly signed SB 354 into law on May 2, 2024

     Pro-enforcement readers have a chance to take an active role in preventing the Republicans in the state Capitol from dismantling long-standing state law aimed at illegal immigration. I respectfully urge you to take advantage of the opportunity.

Maybe the illegal aliens most members of the General Assembly have invited to Georgia won’t murder another college co-ed. You never know, right? For all but two Republican legislators under the Gold Dome, that possibility is merely the cost of “workforce development,” Georgia being “number one for business!” and obedience of directives from the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

Sen. Larry Walker (R- Perry) lead sponsor of SB 354. Contact info here.

Senate Bill 354 is an anti-enforcement bill concocted by the Georgia Chamber and sponsored by Senators Larry Walker (R- Perry), Brian Strickland (R-McDonough), Jason Anavitarte (R- Dallas), Kay Kirkpatrick (R-Marietta), Kim Jackson (D-Atlanta), Steve Gooch (R- Dahlonega), John F. Kennedy (R-Macon), and Randy Robertson (R- Cataula). The stated goal is to make it easier to go to work in Georgia.

What does SB 354 do? It dismantles state law put in place in 2006 that requires all applicants for occupational licenses to swear on an affidavit that they are not an illegal alien. False swearing is a felony. The law is OCGA 50-36-1 – “verification of lawful presence.” It’s part of the occupational licensing process – if the licensing process goes away, the immigration check goes too. Which, again, is exactly what SB 354 does for covered jobs.

Gov. Kemp’s Capitol office phone number is 404-656-1776

The legislation applies to low skilled personnel in the barbering/cosmetology industry and removes the requirement for accessing an occupational license for the covered workers. Next year’s edition will be aimed at more occupations because according to a Sen. Larry Walker-sponsored Resolution passed by the GOP-ruled Senate last year, occupational licensing in Georgia is “burdensome and onerous.”

Despite this writer’s frantic effort to stop the bill by explaining all this to key Republican lawmakers, the bill was sent to Gov. Kemp’s desk on March 26. Only two Republicans in the General Assembly voted against the measure – House Reps Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta) and Kimberly New (R- Villa Rica). Yes, you read that correctly – zero Republican state senators voted “no” and only two Republicans in the House.

  • Related reading: Email to GA Rep Alan Powell on SB 354 as instructed by his assistant 

It should be noted that the immigration verification law under attack from the “anything-for-a-buck” crowd under the Gold Dome was put in place as part of SB 529, the ‘Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act of 2006.’ It was signed by Republican Governor Sonny Perdue that year. It began the committee process in the Senate Public Safety committee chaired by then state Senator Brian Kemp who told the liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution at the time that many Georgians are “fed up” with illegal immigration. Indeed.

Will Kemp sign a bill that dismantles state illegal immigration laws that he helped put on the books? The smart money says “yes”, unless he knows a lot of GOP voters are watching.

The bottom line is this: Only a veto from Kemp can stop SB 354 from becoming law in Georgia. If that happens, we should all grasp that more bills with the same goals will pass next year and thereafter. Gov. Brian Kemp will not veto this bill without public pressure.

Honest.

Please call the Capitol office of Gov. Brian Kemp (404-656-1776) and leave a message with the staffer asking him to veto SB 354.

I’ll wash your car if you speak up.

 

The above column was published in the Coastal Georgia newspaper The Islander on April 8, 2024.

 

 

 

 

 

Request for citation of line numbers as source of news report on HB 1105 sent to the Associated Press today

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Update: Our effort to see a correction to the below linked AP story resulted in a correction the day after we contacted them.

The below email was sent to the AP Atlanta desk this morning

Georgia House passes bill requiring police to help arrest immigrants after student’s killing

ByJEFF AMY Associated Press
February 29, 2024, 6:08 PM
Jeff Amy, AP reporter.
 

AP,

Your reporter Jeff Amy has reported (here) that “Georgia House Republicans are backing a bill that would require every eligible police and sheriff’s department to help identify undocumented immigrants, arrest them and detain them for deportation.”
 
Amy has not replied to requests from here posted on X/Twitter to cite the line numbers in the current version of HB 1105 (as passed the House LC 47 2985S) the reflect language that does what you are reporting. This should be an easy task.
 
So we repeat the request: Please cite the line numbers in HB 1105 that “requiring police to help arrest immigrants after student’s killing” or that would require every eligible police and sheriff’s department to help identify undocumented immigrants, arrest them and detain them for deportation.”
Nobody answers the AP Atlanta desk (404-522-8971) phone when we call to make this request and nobody from the “AP Newsroom” has replied to this same request sent yesterday, March 4. 
 
We aren’t saying this isn’t a terrific and lifesaving idea, but surely you can cite the line numbers in the bill on which you are basing your news report , right?
 
If Kate Brumback is still there, we advise you ask her to help you – she was once quite adept at reading and understanding and reporting on legislation in GA. 
 
Thanks for a timely reply.
 
D.A. King
Marietta.
404
@DAKDIS