Fast Facts
FAST FACT: “Some illegal immigrants can get Georgia driver’s licenses” – from the Associated Press #DDS
From the Wayback File:
Some illegal immigrants can get Georgia driver’s licenses
Associated Press
“While I do not agree with the actions of the President in issuing the directive, it has been implemented by the Department of Homeland Security, USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services), and state law recognizes the approval of deferred action status as a basis for issuing a temporary driver’s license,” Attorney General Sam Olens, a Republican, wrote in a letter obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.
Olens said illegal immigrants with the special status would not, however, be eligible for a state identification card. He says such cards are considered public benefits which are not available to illegal immigrants.
Under the policy – which was announced in June and took effect last week – eligible immigrants must have arrived in the U.S. before their 16th birthday, are 30 or younger, have lived here at least five years, and are in school or graduated or served in the military.
They also must not have a criminal record or otherwise pose a safety threat. They can apply to stay in the country and be granted a work permit for two years, but they would not be granted citizenship.
Read the entire AP story here.
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FAST FACT: Biden plan calls for increasing immigration and dismantling enforcement
Biden has been known as a moderate voice in the modern Democratic Party, willing to strike deals by reaching across the aisle. On immigration, his career NumbersUSA immigration-reduction grade of a D, while not good, places him in the middle of all Congressional Democrats since 1990. But compared with current Congressional Democrats, Biden would rank among the best 10%.
Unfortunately, instead of attempting to convince the more progressive wing of the Party that moderation on immigration is a more popular position, the “unity plan” capitulates to the radical wing of the Party that supports policies that would effectively create open borders. The days of Barbara Jordan’s Democratic Party that put the interests of American workers ahead of foreign workers and the businesses that profit from cheap labor are long gone.
LEGAL IMMIGRATION
While Biden refers to the Gang of 8 plan multiple times throughout his immigration platform, he forgets that one of the few bright spots in the Gang of 8 plan was its elimination of the Visa Lottery. Both his official plan and the “unity plan” call for the continuation of the Lottery.
We believe we should … preserve the critical role of diversity preferences in our immigration system.
Biden also calls for an increase in the number of employment-based green cards, including an exemption from the numerical limits for foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges and universities with an advanced degree.
He calls for changes to the family chain migration categories, including exempting spouses and children of green card holders from numerical limits without offsets and issuing visas and work permits to any extended family members on the family-preference backlog due to annual caps.
Biden further calls for an increase of the H-1B higher-wage guest worker program and the streamlining of the H-2 guest worker programs.
Lastly, Biden adopts the Libertarian plan that was pushed by Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigieg to create a new visa program for states and local communities to utilize for “economic development”. One key goal of this is to add immigrants into depopulated cities that Americans have been fleeing.
Biden’s call for more immigration and guest workers, especially when nearly 50 million Americans have filed for unemployment since February and the nation faces months, if not years, of economic uncertainty, is a slap in the face to American workers of all skills.
AMNESTY
During the debates last fall, Biden was one of the few Democratic hopefuls who still believed in the rule of law. While most of the candidates for the Party’s nomination sought to abolish ICE and decriminalize illegal border crossings, Biden at least recognized that immigration enforcement is necessary.
He apparently no longer does.
Biden has adopted the Sanders’ plan to halt all deportations during the first 100 days of his presidency. In other words, he’s offering a 3-month open invitation for anyone in the world to come to the United States, so they can take advantage of the massive amnesty that he also promises.
Supporting an amnesty for nearly every illegal alien in the United States is not a new position for Biden; he called for a mass amnesty during the debates, and in 2013, he supported the Gang of 8’s mass amnesty bill. Highlights of his plan include speedier amnesties for “Dreamers” and agricultural workers, while adopting a bipartisan House plan that would force existing illegal Ag workers into indentured servitude before receiving their amnesty…. Read the rest here from NumbersUSA.com.
FAST FACT: Chamber of Commerce: ‘Crucial’ to Import Foreign Workers While 30M Americans Unemployed
United States Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donahue says it is “crucial” that businesses be allowed to continue importing foreign visa workers even as 30 million Americans remain unemployed due to the Chinese coronavirus crisis.
Donahue sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking that he not halt foreign visa worker programs — such as the H-1B visa, the L visa, the H-2B visa, and the OPT program — claiming businesses need the foreign workers to fill American jobs. Read the rest here at Breitbart News.
FAST FACT: A majority of H-1B employers use the program to pay migrant workers well below market wages
H-1B visas and prevailing wage level
Key takeaways
H-1B is a flawed visa program:
- DOL lets H-1B employers undercut local wages. Sixty percent of H-1B positions certified by the U.S. Department of Labor are assigned wage levels well below the local median wage for the occupation. While H-1B program rules allow this, DOL has the authority to change it—but hasn’t.
- A small number of employers dominate the program. While over 53,000 employers used the H-1B program in 2019, the top 30 H-1B employers accounted for more than one in four of all 389,000 H-1B petitions approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2019.
- Outsourcing firms make heavy use of the H-1B program. Half of the top 30 H-1B employers use an outsourcing business model to provide staff for third-party clients, rather than employing H-1B workers directly to fill a special need at the company that applies for the visa.
- Major U.S. firms use the H-1B program to pay low wages. Among the top 30 H-1B employers are major U.S. firms including Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Google, Apple, and Facebook. All of them take advantage of program rules in order to legally pay many of their H-1B workers below the local median wage for the jobs they fill.
Read much more here from the Economic Policy Institute.
Fast Fact: “Each year, about three thousand undocumented students graduate from high school in Georgia”
“Each year, about three thousand undocumented students graduate from high school in Georgia,…”
Here from the New Yorker magazine, May, 2017
Fast Fact: Foreign nationals required by federal law to carry proof of alien registration
“This is where the requirement to carry registration evidence comes in. Section 264(e) of INA requires every individual over the age of 18 to carry their “registration” documents with them at all times. Specifically, section 264(e) reads:
e) Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d)
[where the government issues a “registration certificate” after each foreign national’s registration]. Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.”
Fast Fact: More than 90% of illegal aliens arrested by federal agents in the United States last year had criminal convictions or pending criminal charges
More than 90% of illegal arrested arrested by federal agents in the United States last year had criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, including 56,000 assaults and thousands of sex crimes, robberies, homicides and kidnappings.
Many had “extensive criminal histories with multiple convictions,” according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) year-end report. The 123,128 illegal aliens arrested by the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in 2019 had 489,063 criminal convictions and pending charges, representing an average of four crimes per alien, highlighting the “recidivist nature” of the arrested aliens, the agency writes, noting that sanctuary cities nationwide greatly impeded its public safety efforts.
Fast Fact: Almost a quarter of the foreign born in the U.S.(2017) are illegal aliens – Pew Research Center
Appellate Court: Not lawfully present, illegal aliens with DACA are illegal aliens – Georgia issuing public benefits based on disputed status
Ruling likely will lead to additional legal action on public benefits
DACA recipients are “inadmissible and thus removable” under federal law.
Illegal aliens who have been awarded deferred action on deportation proceedings through the DACA amnesty by both the Obama and Trump administrations are illegal aliens and do not have “lawful presence” says the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision was handed down March 6, 2019.
The ruling was in response to a suit brought by several illegal aliens in Georgia who are challenging the Board of Regents policy that requires lawful presence for instate tuition purposes and admittance to some USG universities.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than is Arizona. Statistics from the Washington DC – based Migration Policy Institute highlighted by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute indicate that Georgia has more illegal aliens than green card holders.
A group of DACA recipients sued the leaders of the Georgia higher education system in 2016, which bars aliens who are not “lawfully present” from enrolling in some Georgia colleges and universities, even if they would academically qualify for admission. “The students argued that they were lawfully present under federal law, which preempted state law. They also claimed that the admissions bar violated their right to equal protection, as Georgia treats aliens who are paroled into the U.S. or granted asylum as “lawfully present,” reported the Immigration Reform Law Institute.
The Eleventh Circuit rejected all of the students’ claims. The court noted that “lawfully present” is not a standalone immigration classification, and it is not defined anywhere in the (Immigration and Nationality) Act” *(opinion here).
The ruling is consistent with an official October 2017 statement to this writer from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that “current law does not grant any legal status for the class of individuals who are current recipients of DACA. Recipients of DACA are currently unlawfully present in the U.S. with their removal deferred.”
Decision may lead to additional legal action on access to public benefits
The court’s decision likely portends more legal action. Georgia’s public benefits law, OCGA 50-36-1, requires “lawful presence” for non-citizens to access a host of public benefits, including drivers licenses, official ID Cards, health benefits, food stamps, insurance licenses and unemployment benefits. While it goes largely unreported by the Georgia media, various official agencies have been quietly issuing these benefits to DACA recipients since 2012 based on the applicant’s oath on affidavits that they are a “qualified alien.”
The monetary cost to Georgia taxpayers for benefits to the illegal aliens with deferred action on deportation, both in and outside of DACA is unknown.
Updated, 4:50PM March 8, 2019. Updated July 26, 2020 with addition of link to affidavit. Updated July 30, 2020 with link to “qualified alien.”
