looking for a better life • news and pro-enforcement opinion
By Jim Denery, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution here.
I think he is getting better at it.
“I rise today in support of the people of Iran, as they struggle against an oppressive and dangerous regime,” said Rep. McCormick. “I also commend our great Iranian-American community in Georgia and across this nation, who hope that their friends and family on the other side of the world may one day have the freedom and prosperity we all enjoy in the United States.”
The below letter was sent to opinion page editor Andrea Jackson and the letters submission address the AJC last week (Jan 11). I have been cancelled for about two years.
Here is another example. I have many more.
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Re: “Students need more schooling choices” Buzz Brockway, Jan 10, 2023
“School choice” talk should include immigration reality
In his recent guest column, lobbyist and former Gwinnett Republican state Rep Buzz Brockway offered a renewed argument for K-12 “school choice” in Georgia that warrants further consideration. The premise is that students are behind because of Covid so we need legislation to allow “…parents and guardians to access funds directly…” so they can use state money to pay for private school tuition and other benefits, including private tutoring.
Missing here is recognition of the raging illegal immigration crisis in the nation and in Georgia. Somewhere north of 260,000 unaccompanied migrant children/minors have been encountered at the southern border since President Biden took office, per U.S. Customs & Border Protection agency data. The Center for Immigration Studies in Washington estimates about 80% of the minors are placed with family members who are already living here illegally – including in Georgia.
School choice is a solid idea. Encouraging and rewarding illegal immigration into Georgia with offers of a taxpayer-financed private K-12 school education isn’t. The former should not include the latter.
D.A. KING
MARIETTA
PRESIDENT, THE DUSTIN INMAN SOCIETY
404- ***-*****
The below was emailed to Mr. McAfee today and put in the U.S.P.S.
January 11, 2023
The Honorable Mr. Scott McAfee
Inspector General, Georgia
2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive SW,
1102 West Tower
Atlanta, GA 30334
Re:
A second addition to my September 6, 2022 complaint against Governor Brian Kemp.
Complaint confirmation # F345217D89. My first addition is here.
“The Governor shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed and shall be the conservator of the peace throughout the state.” Section ll, Paragraph ll of the Georgia Constitution.
Mr. McAfee,
Please update my September complaint against Gov. Brian Kemp to include my allegation that he is in violation of his oath of office on enforcement of yet another state law, OCGA 36-80-23, known as Georgia’s “sanctuary city law.”
For clarity, I paste part of the law below:
36-80-23. Prohibition on immigration sanctuary policies by local governmental entities; certification of compliance.
“…(6) “Sanctuary policy” means any regulation, rule, policy, or practice adopted by a local governing body which prohibits or restricts local officials or employees from communicating or cooperating with federal officials or law enforcement officers with regard to reporting immigration status information while such local official or employee is acting within the scope of his or her official duties.
(b) No local governing body, whether acting through its governing body or by an initiative, referendum, or any other process, shall enact, adopt, implement, or enforce any sanctuary policy.
(c) Any local governing body that acts in violation of this Code section shall be subject to the withholding of state funding or state administered federal funding other than funds to provide services specified in subsection (d) of Code Section 50-36-1.
(d) As a condition of funding, the Department of Community Affairs, the Department of Transportation, or any other state agency that provides funding to local governing bodies shall require certification pursuant to Code Section 50-36-4 as proof of compliance with this Code section.”
As you know, Gwinnett County Sheriff Keybo Taylor has defiantly boasted to the national and Georgia media that his office will not share information on immigration status with federal immigration authorities (ICE).
I again respectfully remind you that according to quotes published in the media, including the Associated Press, Taylor’s exact words on this policy at his swearing-in event on January 1, 2021 were “one thing we will not be doing is notifying ICE of anybody’s immigration status in the jail of any of our facilities.”
I have spent many hours verifying that Sheriff Taylor has been allowed to fulfill his anti-enforcement pledge.
This public defiance of the state law Taylor (and Gov. Kemp) are charged with enforcing should be treated as Taylor’s confession to repeated and now two-year long violations of not only OCGA 36-80-23 but also OCGA 42-2-14.
My original complaint was centered around Gov. Kemp’s refusal to enforce the latter law, which, as you also know, requires jailers – including Sheriff Taylor – to use reasonable effort to determine immigration status of foreign-born prisoners and to report illegal aliens to the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.
In addition, OCGA 36-80-23 requires certification of compliance from the “governing body” as a condition of funding from various state agencies.
(d) As a condition of funding, the Department of Community Affairs, the Department of Transportation, or any other state agency that provides funding to local governing bodies shall require certification pursuant to Code Section 50-36-4 as proof of compliance with this Code section.”
As you informed me last year in your response to my original complaints against Cobb Sheriff Craig Owens and (Gwinnett Co.) Sheriff Keybo Taylor, these sheriffs are employed by their respective counties. Those county governments are the “governing body” of each sheriff and the sheriffs are the “elected or appointed official” and certified peace officer” in the law cited in paragraph (5):
“(5) Local official or employee” means any elected or appointed official, supervisor or managerial employee, contractor, agent, or certified peace officer acting on behalf of or in conjunction with a local governing body.”
The law does not say “may” – it says “shall” be subject to withholding of state funding or state administered funding not stated in subsection (d) of another law that goes unenforced by Gov. Kemp.
“Any local governing body that acts in violation of this Code section shall be subject to the withholding of state funding or state administered federal funding other than funds to provide services specified in subsection (d) of Code Section 50-36-1.”
I charge that Sheriff Taylor is in violation of both OCGA 42-4-14 and OCGA 36-80-23. Gwinnett County government, operated by the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners is in violation of OCGA 36-80-23 (while it is not the subject of this complaint, I believe Gwinnett County to be in violation of OCGA 50-36-1 as well).
Unless Gwinnett County government has made false statements of compliance on OCGA 36-80-23 making the state funding agencies believe the county complies, it would seem that all of the state agencies that have funded Gwinnet County since January 1, 2021 (Sheriff Taylor’s swearing in date) have done so illegally.
I limit this observation here to one county for space and time, but I can easily point to multiple additional governing bodies (including Cobb County) that are not in compliance with any of the laws mentioned here for the same reasons.
As the Chief executive, Gov. Kemp is responsible for the enforcement of all the laws mentioned above and for the public safety of all Georgians.
Please advise me if I must file a separate complaint with your office dedicated to the various state agencies involved with apparent funding violations outlined above – or if your investigators can and will use the information contained in this addition to my complaint against Gov. Kemp to examine my allegations regarding state agencies here.
Please forward my complaint to the Attorney General.
I have again read the mission statement and duties of your office:
“The State of Georgia Office of the Inspector General promotes transparency and accountability in state government. OIG diligently investigates fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption in the executive branch. We work to promote effective controls, improve agency policies and procedures, and identify opportunities for efficiency…”
I believe I have met the requirements for your office to investigate all concerned in this letter and have outlined a valid account that accounts for nearly all of the examples of illegal government actions in your “what we do” statement.
I will be grateful for a note that you have received this additional information and complaint. I will follow up on it.
Sincere congratulations on your appointment to the Judicial Branch.
Respectfully,
D.A. King
Related: When in a hole, stop digging.
The below was recorded from The Martha Zoller Show on Jan. 10, 2023 in the final 20 minutes of the two hour Martha Zoller Show on WDUN AM radio in Gainesville GA.
New to this story? See here.
Transcript by Rev.com. My cost $10.00 and about one hour.
Republican radio show host Martha Zoller:
Segment in progress “… for our vision for what immigration ought to be in this country. And that is, one, secure the border, two, we need to deal with the DACA situation once and for all, and, you know, my view is that, uh, I’m kind of with what President Trump proposed, which is that you do the DACA kids and their parents. It’s about 2.2 million. We already know who these folks are because they’ve registered. And we can take care of that in exchange for border security. Nancy Pelosi didn’t want that, but there’s a new leader now. Maybe he will be somebody that will be easier to work with on this issue, maybe. I don’t know. Uh, but those two components have to be dealt with together. But I’m certainly willing to debate how those components go. I’m willing to debate on the DACA issue. I do think border security is just a no-brainer. It’s something both sides want, and it’s something that, that we need.
The other two things have to do with the 1.1 million legal immigrants we have every year. Um, and that is that we’ve got a number of people that have been waiting a very long time for green cards, much longer than they should. And we need to figure out a way to get that backlog cleared. And I think that, again, Senator Perdue had a great suggestion that you lower that number of green cards from 1.1 million down to about 700,000. You take that 400,000 a year, and you clear the backlog of green cards until you get caught up. And then if, if it’s necessary to go back up to that 1.1 million a year, then you do that. But you do that based on merit.
And, you know, a lot of people have their hair on fire when you start talking about immigrants having to meet a merit standard. And there were things on the list kind like, “Do you speak English? What is your education? What kind of skills do you have? Um, do you have…” You know, and that, the reason why they do that is that a lot of people say, “Oh, well, you don’t want manual labor workers.” No. We need farm workers to come in. We need manual labor workers, but it can’t be just low income or low skill workers. It’s got to be a mix of what we need. And we need engineers, we need doctors, we need lawyers, okay? We need healthcare professionals, and we need to have a more merit-based, like Canada does, like Australia does, like many other countries do. We made a mistake. On paper, it looks good to have a family-based immigration system. But what happened was is instead of having family members as being kind of sponsors, and then that way you never have somebody that goes onto public services, all right? Uh, you have a big extended family, and nobody’s looking out for each other. You’ve got to have sponsors for these folks that are being put in there.
But there’s a four-part plan. I’ve talked about it a number of times. And, you know, do I think I get everything I want? No. This is not a dictatorship, but I do think it’s a good place to start for discussion. Let’s go to the phones. It’s 770-535-2911, and talk to Paul in Gainesville.
Hey, Paul. How you doing?…”
“Stalker Boy” Sam Aguilar on the Martha Zoller Show
An anti-enforcement activist, Sam Aguilar is a former GALEO staffer, former FWD.us staffer and a person who spins whole cloth lies about his political enemies. Aguilar lost his gig with FWD.us – we hope due to our shining some light on his goofy antics in the Georgia state Capitol.
From my own experience with this nut in 2015:
“Late in the legislative session. At night, on the 4th floor of the GA Capitol:
This bizarre character, Sam Aguilar, walked up and introduced himself with an odd smirk. As I shook his hand he informed me he worked for GALEO, which is one of the many corporate-funded anti-enforcement immigration lobby groups in GA. Warning, if you shake hands with this nutball, have a towel handy, his hands are miserably sweaty. After I walked away, I noticed he was following me, so I reversed direction to be sure. Sure enough, he was right on my tail. He stayed about 4 feet behind me for about 10 minutes around the building, with people everywhere, including when I went into the men’s room.
I finally told a Capitol Police officer what was up and handed my phone to a friend to record Stalker Boy Sam Aguilar. What you see here is the last minute of me, then age 63, being stalked by a paid GALEO anti-borders, millenial activist – in public. The Capitol Police officer was just about to get involved and Stalker Boy decided to slow down his tail. But he still had the weird smirk. I suppose in lefty-land this is considered revenge for my pro-enforcement work to make GA. inhospitable to the crime of illegal immigration. To be clear. Stalker Boy Sam Aguilar is a very strange egg.”
You can click here to see the video and more info.
Related: “Immigration amnesty: Republican GA radio show host Martha Zoller interviews illegal alien FWD.us lobbyist guest Jaime Rangel”
Readers can listen to Republican radio show host Martha Zoller thank ‘Stalker Boy’ Sam Aguilar for what he does at the end of the below audio of her interview with him from Nov. 29, 2021.
Explainer: My old friend and Republican radio show host Martha Zoller had illegal alien, DACA recipient and paid FWD.us (FORWARD) lobbyist Jaime Rangel on her show Dec. 12 providing Rangel an opportunity to pitch the FWD.us talking points on why congress should pass another amnesty – like in 1986. Rangel repeatedly told Zoller’s listeners the amnesty proposal (now happily as dead as Pancho Villa) would apply only to DACA recipients. Zoller did not correct him.
That radio interview produced my “part one” post: “Immigration amnesty: Republican GA radio show host Martha Zoller interviews illegal alien FWD.us lobbyist guest — audio & transcript #JaimeRangel *Updated.”
The truth is that there are somewhere around 600,000 illegal aliens in the U.S.A. with Obama’s illegal 2021 DACA scam status. The authors of the “framework” for amnesty were happy to inform the media that their proposal would put about two million illegal aliens on the road to U.S. citizenship. Shorter: The amnesty proposal presented on the Zoller broadcast that day was not only for DACA recipients and the entire conversation was based on a lie.
I called in after Rangel’s hit and politely said as much. I did not record my call or Zoller’s other remarks after the Rangel interview was over. I planned on posting that audio and transcript after Zoller posted her podcast. My call was not included in that podcast. Neither were Zoller’s added remarks in support of the above amnesty for illegal aliens and the eventual addition of about two million voters to Democrat voter rolls. Anyone who tells you that illegal aliens and or “more Hispanics” will vote for pro-enforcement Republicans after they are transformed into U.S. citizens is not familiar with the results of the 1986 amnesty swindle.
Martha Zoller was one of our featured speakers at a 2007 rally against amnesty in front of the George W. Bush White House we organized and paid for. I am saddened that she has apparently changed her position on that concept.
It’s worth your time to hear Martha refer to “the likes of D.A. King…” It’s too funny.
* Related From Discover the Networks on FORWARD/FWD.us: “Launched on April 11, 2013, and drawing its name from President Barack Obama‘s 2012 re-election campaign slogan (“Forward”), FWD.us is a pro-Democrat organization founded by thirteen tech-industry leaders to promote the passage of “comprehensive immigration reform” in the United States.”
The below transcript is from the Martha Zoller Show December 13, 2022 on WDUN- AM 550 .
You can hear the audio below.
Transcript by Rev.com. My cost, $14.00 and three hours.
I added educational links to the transcript copy.
Martha Zoller, Republican radio show host:
“… you know, on that, but I wanna address something that happened yesterday and kind of spilled over into last night that I wanted to, uh, uh, chat with you about. So we had, uh, Jamie Rangel on from Forward to talk about the DACA situation yesterday. And I’ve been on record for a long time, uh, to say that I do believe that in the case of these DACA kids, uh, that I don’t think… I think they should be kids that were brought here, not up to 16 years old, but kids maybe 10 years old, there are still negotiations that need to be done.
But even someone like Rush Limbaugh, if you recall, about 15 years ago, a woman called into his radio show. She was 35 years old. She was originally from Colombia. She had been brought here to the United States when she was two, and had lived here and now was in danger of being deported because she came in with her illegal immigrant parents, and her… she made a very strong case. And Rush Limbaugh even agreed with her that she had been educated here. She had gone to college here, she had married, had children, had worked here, remember, nothing about her life in Colombia, had lived in the United States for, uh, 33 years and now she was afraid she was gonna be deported. This was when the first rumblings and people talked about something that we now call DACA.
Okay. So reasonable people can look at the DACA situation and without being called pro-immigrant, anti-immigrant, uh, or being pasted by the likes of DA King, as someone that doesn’t understand the immigration issue. I like DA, I think the work he does is good, but he is so one-issue oriented, that he cannot have a reasonable conversation about the fact there are nuances to this issue. And so he’s branded me an amnesty person on Twitter, which I don’t care about Twitter, I made one response to it, I’m not gonna respond to any of the rest of it.
Okay, I’m not an amnesty person, although I do think a solution needs to be found for whatever we’re gonna define as DACA kids. And I also have asked the question, a bunch of times, related to the deal that former President Trump, who probably did the best job on stemming illegal immigration of any president in the last 50 years. And what Donald Trump proposed was, “You give us $5 billion for the wall, we’ll give you all the DACA kids,” which at that time, that number was about 700,000, and their parents, which made the number about 2.2 million.
“I’ll do that if you’ll give me that.” It’s called deal making. It’s called coming up with a solution that’s going to work. And I do agree, we need to go down a path like that, and if you’re gonna brand be an amnesty person because of that, fine, I’ll take that. Because I don’t hide from what I’m saying. I’m… I put the, uh, interview out there immediately after I did it, as I always do. And, and you know what? Uh, a, a few people… I mean, heck, I got five times the followers that DA King has, and most of the people that liked these, these messages don’t really have any kind of amplification.
But what I would say about that is, if we can’t come to the table and have a discussion about the nuances of this, I’ve also talked about fiance visas. my nephew is going through a situation. He’s now married his fiancee. But he has spent $10,000 in legal fees, trying to get his fiancee back into the United States. She’s now his wife, ’cause they have to marry within 90 days. That part of the situation is true. If you get your fiancee over here, you got to get married in 90 days, even if you haven’t seen each other for two years. And that’s the situation that my nephew found himself in. They met in graduate school. She was here on a visa. She had to go home and went home followed her visa after, you know, she could have overstayed her visa, like most of the people who were illegal immigrants, but she didn’t do that, she went home, and they decided they wanted to get married.
And so it took him two years to get her back to the United States, and COVID played into that a little bit too. But they had to get married within 90 days. And she still doesn’t have a green card. She can’t drive. She can’t work, and there’s something wrong with the system like that. That’s the legal immigration part of the system. So there’s many tiers to this immigration discussion and you can join us on the phones at 770-535-2911. Here’s the Martha Zoller view of what we need to do.
Okay, and if you wanna call me names because of it fine, fine. But I’m gonna tell you this is what in my many years of looking at this we need to do, first we need to secure the border, and I mean both borders. Okay, because you must have a secure border, we need to get back to, uh, not that long ago 2020 in, uh, America, where we were gi- we have less than 500 people a day coming across the border that were illegal, and now we have thousands a day, we need to secure the border.
And that may not be a wall in the sense of it’s a wall over 2200 miles, different terrains require different things. But I’m using wall in the general term, that a way to deter people and to funnel people into the actual checkpoints that we have that are official checkpoints of the United States of America, number one. Number two, we do need to look and define what a DACA kid is. I don’t think it’s up to 16 years old, because this culture that primarily uses this DACA, uh, carve out, uh, that, that by the time kids are 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, they’re acting like adults, they’re dropping out of school and working to support the family. They are acting like adults. Okay, so I don’t think, I don’t think all the way up to 16 is the right age, maybe 10 is the right age, but I’m willing to have a debate about that.
And then we need to… And I do think that President Trump was correct in saying you’re probably gonna have to allow the parents legal status too, because you really can’t have a minor child if they’re still minor children staying in the United States without their parents. Now, you could send them all back. But I’m talking about young people that have only lived in America, that, uh, speak English, that have gone to school here and that, that there ought to be some clear things.
I, I kind of been like Newt Gingrich in a way that there are… there is a class of people that you’re gonna have to look at him family, by family, and you’re gonna have to make that decision, and that’s going to cost money and time, but it’s the right thing to do. Because they’ve lived here for 5, 10, 15, 25 years, they haven’t been breaking the law while they’re been, been here other than crossing the border illegally. They’ve been paying taxes.
I mean, heck, the people that go ahead and get a federal tax ID number, and, and they’re paying taxes, we got to figure out how to legalize those folks. And then we need to fix the legal immigration system, and that means lowering the overall number of green cards, taking that 500,000 green cards a year and clearing the backlog of green cards and getting our system caught up. I don’t think that’s unreasonable and I don’t think that is pro-illegal immigration or pro-amnesty. I think that is living in the real world, and understanding that every person cannot be categorized in a certain way.
But I understand DA’s commitment to this because he has… And there are many people across this country who have lost loved ones to the crimes of illegal immigrants that should have never been here in the first place, and that is a travesty.
(end of topic)
Radio announcer:
It’s local radio. And that’s why you’re listening is the Martha Zoller Show on AM 5:50 and FM 102.9, WDUN.
Martha Zoller Republican radio show host:
Philip Magnus is joining us right now. Uh, he wrote an article, uh…”
_
Edit, Dec. 27, 20222 – corrected date on rally photo.
15 Dec 2022
Mr. John H. Cranford
Coweta Judicial District
Mr. Cranford,
As promised, I write regarding your response to my complaint against Carroll County government in administering public benefits and the legislative intent and goals of multiple laws intended to ensure those benefits do not go to ineligible applicants. As I noted previously, I do not agree with most of your conclusions, and I respectfully urge you to take a second look at the matter.
I have tried to arrange my points to coincide with the numbered paragraphs in your letter.
1) OCGA 50-36-1 requires (most) agencies administering public benefits to verify the “lawful presence” of any applicant for public benefits. I believe it is clear that Carroll County did not fulfill that obligation over the course of a decade:
(“b) Except as provided in subsection (d) of this Code section or where exempted by federal law, every agency or political subdivision shall verify the lawful presence in the United States under federal immigration law of any applicant for public benefits.”
The law then mandates a detailed, plain language process for that verification which includes requiring the applicant to swear that he is eligible within the “lawful presence” definition on a standardized affidavit. The law says the source of that affidavit form is the state auditor’s office.
(2) The state auditor shall create affidavits for use under this subsection and shall keep a current version of such affidavits on the Department of Audits and Accounts’ official website.
I challenge the concept that the law somehow requires use of an affidavit, that the auditor’s office is legislatively charged with creating the affidavit for use – but that the issuing agency is not required to use that affidavit.
A reasonable consideration of the legislative intent and the language of the law seems clear enough. (*1) If the law intended to allow agencies to create their own forms, documents and affidavits bypassing the mandate that the auditor “shall create and keep a current version of such affidavits…” that option would be stated in the law. It seems a difficult stretch to conclude otherwise. There is no language or implication in the law that allows any issuing agency to create their own form or format. Again, to address otherwise this is to infer something that is not stated or even implied in the plain language text of OCGA 50-36-1.
Again, with respect, I regard a legal decision on the above as being within the realm and authority of a court – not an executive branch reading or opinion.
I urge you to reconsider your conclusion on this point.
2) From my Sept. 29, 2022 post “The SAVE affidavit used by Carroll County is not the SAVE affidavit designed by the Dept. of Audits and Accounts – the State Auditor. And in Carroll County there is no requirement for foreigners to complete the affidavit for renewals…”
OCGA 50-36-1 recognizes that it is not usual for an American to lose U.S. citizenship status but that it does happen (a naturalized citizen may be subject to denaturalization proceedings in court or as a result of a conviction for knowingly obtaining naturalization through fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1425 ) . The law was amended after original passage to allow for that fact and recognizes that foreign nationals (“foreigners) “lawful presence” status can literally change overnight for a variety of reasons.
The law provides that having proven eligibility through U.S. citizenship in the original application, issue, and verification process, that applicant is not required to prove eligibility again for renewals in the same agency/subdivision.
That provision and exception does not apply to foreigners, and by omission from the last sentence of the below pasted paragraph in the statute, they are required to prove eligibility with all steps of the process for all renewals. (4) The requirements of this subsection shall not apply to any applicant applying for or renewing an application for a public benefit within the same agency or political subdivision if the applicant has previously complied with the requirements of this subsection by submission of a secure and verifiable document, as defined in Code Section 50-36-2, and a signed and sworn affidavit affirming that such applicant is a United States citizen. (Emphasis mine)
The law does in fact clearly distinguish between citizens and non-citizens regarding whether they must complete a redundant affidavit and/or secure and verifiable ID in the renewal process. To ignore the last words of the above paragraph is not a complete consideration of the law or an accurate response to that part of my column or complaint.
3) As you noted, the affidavit that I received from Carroll county in my open records request (and have posted on in my Sept 29, 2022 column) “has a Revision Date of 2/25/2020.” You write that it “appears to be in compliance with the requirements of OCGA 50-36-1.” We agree that the “homemade” Carroll County affidavit does not include the sentence contained in the auditor’s version of the affidavit that reads “The undersigned applicant also hereby verifies that he or she is 18 years of age or older and has provided at least one secure and verifiable document, as required by 50-36-1 (f) (l), with this affidavit.
The secure and verifiable document provided with this affidavit can best be classified as:
Because of that absence, the 4000-ish applicants that I am informed have applied for and been issued public benefits in Carroll County in the last decade have not sworn to the full requirements of verification under the law because Carroll County decided to ignore the affidavit created for use by the state auditor. Whether or not the law required the above entry on the affidavit, it does require the secure and verifiable ID oath process.
This was the exact reason for amending the law to require the creation of a standardized, auditor’s provided affidavit form. I do not regard the Revision date of 2020 as anything other than another indication of Carroll County’s refusal/failure to comply years after the law went into effect.
Respectfully, I do not agree that the Carroll County version seems to be in compliance unless you insist on rejecting the premise that the auditor’s form is not actually created for use (*1 please see above) or that Carroll County somehow has legal authority to not use it. If that authority exists, I hope Carroll County government official can cite it?
Carroll County apparently skipped the entire secure and verifiable ID collection process
Carroll County not only decided not to include the above paragraph in their version of the affidavit, but apparently bypassed the entire process of collecting any secure and verifiable documents until late this year – after I made this atter public and filed my complaint.
I have a recorded acknowledgement of this on audio from a half-hour October 24, 2022 phone conversation initiated by Carroll County officials to me.
You can easily check on this yourself by asking Carroll County to produce the secure and verifiable ID examples collected in the prior to my public concerned citizen investigation.
Ignoring this important security step in administering public benefits is a violation of the law.
I will provide the audio I mention above upon request from your office.
4) You note that the E-Verify affidavit now posted on the Carroll County website now matches the version provided by the Attorney General’s office. That was not the case last month, as my post explains and illustrates. My original open records request to Carroll County asked for a copy of this affidavit in use. They were unable to provide anything close to the required document – even after a follow-up note from me. Then I was sent an affidavit form that was not in compliance with the law because it wasn’t the affidavit provided by the AG.
As I wrote, I notified one of the Carroll County attorneys of this fact. If they have now begun using the required AG provided affidavit it was after I explained that they were still in violation as you can see from my dated post.
The carelessness and defiance along with the cavalier attitude concerning the law has been evident at Carroll County on this matter since I began my effort to gain compliance early in 2022.
A shorter way to say it is that until I had pursued this to the public complaint level, none of the above was regarded as any sort of problem worthy of concern by elected and appointed officials at Carroll County. They took their time to comply with the rule of law only when it became a public problem for them politically. This is not a luxury enjoyed by taxpaying private citizens.
Allowing this to be ignored and without prosecution is reinforcing the already common attitude in other issuing agencies statewide that “unless we get caught, we can ignore the law designed to deter illegal access to public benefits.”
There are other agencies and political subdivisions within your jurisdiction that are in similar forms of violation of the laws we are discussing here. I mean no offense or disrespect when I note that your move to consider this matter closed will send a clear “we have nothing to worry about…” message to the officials in those agencies if your present consideration becomes more widely publicized.
As I have written to you previously, I do not agree with the conclusions in your investigation. I want to make it clear and repeat that I sent multiple, fact-filled and educated emails to the BOC starting early in 2022 on this matter. I was ignored and brushed off. They only began correcting their documented and admitted violations of multiple laws months later and after I made the issue public and filed my complaint with the sheriff.
It is difficult for reasonable people to regard those reluctant and delayed corrections as “good faith” actions that would allow dismissal of my complaint.
Additions to my complaint – Compliance reports:
OCGA 50-36-1 contains language that makes it illegal to do what Carroll County has clearly (and admittedly) done for about a decade and after they were repeatedly warned of violation. It also contains a reference to 50-36-4 which was created for the specific purpose of making it seemingly impossible to claim ignorance of the law or it’s violation through the required filing of annual compliance reports with the DCA.
“(k) It shall be unlawful for any agency or political subdivision to provide or administer any public benefit in violation of this Code section. Agencies and political subdivisions subject to the requirements of this subsection shall provide an annual report to the Department of Audits and Accounts pursuant to Code Section 50-36-4 as proof of compliance with this subsection. Any agency or political subdivision failing to provide a report as required by this subsection shall not be entitled to any financial assistance, funds, or grants from the Department of Community Affairs.”
OCGA 13-10-91 has a similar requirement for the issuing agencies to conduct “self-audits” on compliance:
(A) Public employers subject to the requirements of this subsection shall provide an annual report to the Department of Audits and Accounts pursuant to Code Section 50-36-4 as proof of compliance with this subsection. Subject to available funding, the state auditor shall conduct annual compliance audits on a minimum of at least one-half of the reporting agencies and publish the results of such audits annually on the Department of Audits and Accounts’ website on or before September 30.
I have not yet taken the time to gather any compliance reports Carroll County may have made or to validate the accuracy of their contents. I can inform you that my broaching this part of the law on the phone call I mention above was greeted with what seemed to me like honest ignorance and surprise. I would not be shocked to learn that no such reports were filed.
I hereby respectfully request that you reconsider regarding this matter as “closed” in your office and that you investigate the possibility of violations involving any filing of the required compliance reports and the possibility that if filed, such reports may contain false and fraudulent claims of compliance.
It is difficult to see how Carrol County can openly correct multiple, long-term violations and at the same time file accurate compliance reports.
I apologize for the length of this reply to your letter to me of December 8, 2022. I would be grateful for the promised phone call to me.
I appreciate your straight-forward and patient reply to my complaint. I am also grateful to you for sending my complaint to the Attorney General’s office and trust the same for this letter.
Please be advised that I have posted virtually all information and correspondence relevant to this matter on my website ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com. There is a “roundup” of my columns on the homepage and additional resources can be accessed using “Carroll County” in the search bar. I reserve the privilege of embedding educational links to this letter when it is posted online.
Respectfully submitted with my thanks,
D.A. King
