Recent Posts Achrives
Are illegal aliens receiving taxpayer-funded rental assistance in Georgia? Update: Yes, they are.
Rising rents in South Georgia are leading to more eviction filings, according to WALB. (Hat tip, Georgia Pundit)
“Experts say nationally, rent hit sharp increases in the last year — up to 40% in some cities. This is making it hard for some to be able to keep a healthy living.
Many families in Valdosta will soon be thrown out of their homes. That’s because funding from the Georgia Rural Assistance Program is ending soon.
South Georgia’s Partnership To End Homelessness Director Dr. Ronnie Mathis said his office is overwhelmed with applications from 18 different counties needing rental assistance.
Mathis said the state’s rental assistance program does in fact work. But, the concern is how long the process takes. The office got a grant for $30,000 but that money was dispersed within 45 days.
“Time is of the essence with this. We really need Georgia rental assistance to speed up the process and if South Georgia’s Partnership is going to be one of the partnerships with them, we want them to be more involved with us,” Robinson said…”
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Update, June 3, 2020 10:30 AM: The federal law creating the Emergency Rental Assistance Program does not have immigration status limitations. Shorter: Yes, illegal aliens can and have accessed taxpayer-funded rental assistance.
We are in the process of confirming that DCA does not ask about citizenship or immigration status.
OCGA 50-36-1 requires verification of “lawful presence” for public benefits, including rent assistance and housing grants.
CHAPTER 36 – VERIFICATION OF LAWFUL PRESENCE WITHIN UNITED STATES
§ 50-36-1 – Verification requirements, procedures, and conditions; exceptions; regulations; criminal and other penalties for violations
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Department of Community Affairs “we’re here to help” link.
It should be noted that more than 20,000 illegal aliens have Georgia drivers licenses and ID Cards.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the GA AG tell us DACA recipients have no “lawful presence” or legal status .
But, I see no question that asks for information on or proof of legal immigration status.
Part of application for benefits:
Republican Rep Bonnie Rich loses primary race in Gwinnett County – opposed voter security measure, HB 228
Noting foreign status on drivers licenses and official ID would be a “scarlet letter…”
Rep Bonnie Rich has lost the race in the Republican Primary for the newly redrawn House District 100 seat. Rich, chairwoman of the House Republican Caucus, has represented House District 97 for the last four legislative sessions was beaten by state Rep. David Clark who is the (pre-redistricting) House District 98 representative.
A carefully protected favorite of Speaker David Ralston, Rep Rich is best known to pro-enforcement advocates as the lead opposition to HB 228 sponsored by Cherokee County Rep Charlice Byrd.
HB 228 was a simple, “belt and suspenders” bill that addresses voter ID security and the drivers licenses and ID Cards Georgia issues to foreigners here as immigrants, guest workers, foreign students – and about twenty thousand illegal aliens with DACA protection. These credentials are labeled “LIMITED TERM” and almost exactly the same as the ones commonly issued to U.S. citizens. Not many people, including most legislators, have any clue what “LIMITED TERM” means. Explanation: the valid term of the credential is timed to expire when the holders visa or “green card” runs out or renews.
HB 228 also addressed the startling fact that there is nothing in state law that says these ID documents are excluded from acceptance as “proper identification” for voting purposes.
HB 228 also required the warning “BEARER NOT U.S. CITIZEN – NOT VOTER ID” to be added to the front of the LIMITED TERM credentials. Also, as mail-in vote security, the Department of Driver Services would begin a system in which the first two characters of the drivers license/ID Card numbers be “NC” on the cards issued to non-citizens. We would catch up with Alabama on that one.
Related: Popular “no-brainer” election integrity legislation, HB 228, apparently dead under the Gold Dome
HB 228 died without a 2022 hearing or committee vote. In the process of killing the measure, the members of the House Special Committee on Election Integrity revealed a troubling lack of knowledge on the identity credentials Georgia issues and related immigration basics. Rich criticized the bill with the explanation that noting foreign status on ID credentials would be a “scarlet letter” for immigrants.
Rep Clark may present problems for pro-enforcement Georgians. He introduced a bill (HB 920) in the 2019-2020 session that would have allowed illegal aliens to access instate tuition in Georgia’s public colleges. Clark’s bill was not limited to illegal aliens with DACA status. We will watch to see if Clark, a member of the Georgia “Freedom Caucus,” submits similar legislation in the coming 2023-2024 legislative session.
Rich was endorsed in the race by House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones (R), the second highest ranking member of the Georgia House.
*Updated 26 May with a blurb from the liberal AJC:
Ralston nemesis ousts colleague, but most lawmakers cruise in primary
“Buford state Rep. David Clark has been a pain in House Speaker David Ralston’s backside in recent years, and Tuesday he delivered another blow.
Clark ousted Rep. Bonnie Rich, R-Suwanee, in the Republican primary for the newly drawn House District 100 in Gwinnett, Forsyth and Hall counties. Rich chaired the House Redistricting Committee that drew the district maps.
Most incumbents cruised to easy wins on Tuesday in the new districts, which were drawn last year in such a partisan way that the candidate who wins the primary will likely win in the November general election as well.” Here.
LA Congressman Mike Johnson to DHS Secretary Mayorkas: It’s an “invasion” – VIDEO
Congressman Johnson to Mayorkas: “My Advice to You is to Begin Your Search for a Different Career.”
Says that DHS is the agency with the smallest margin for error; that Secretary Mayorkas has presided over the greatest immigration catastrophe in American history, and has committed impeachable offenses
Former Acting ICE Director, Tom Homan: “When it comes to dealing with illegal immigration, Kemp has failed the people of Georgia and this nation”
Tom Homan, acting ICE Director under President Trump has endorsed former U.S. Senator David Perdue in Georgia’s Republican Primary race.
Mr. Homan was the keynote speaker at the February, 2020 Dustin Inman Society event ‘Honoring Immigrants: A Pro-enforcement Conversation on Immigration’ in Atlanta and raised the issue of Gov Kemp’s defiance on his 2018 campaign promises then. We reminded all concerned about that fact last July with “Illegal immigration in Georgia: Former ICE Director Tom Homan Condemns Gov. Brian Kemp.”
We note that this announcement was posted on Twitter Friday, but we cannot find coverage of Homan’s support for Perdue or his criticism of Kemp in the that the liberal AJC.
A favor if somebody who still subscribes sends us a link to any story or blog post from the AJC editors?
We agree with Mr. Homan’s analysis of Kemp’s betrayal on illegal immigration in Georgia.
“Conservative groups,” Frontline Policy Action and the con on “school choice!” in the 2022 GA General Assembly
Illegal immigration in Georgia: Beware the BF from trusted “conservative groups” on “school choice!”
We passed on some important facts on the “school choice!” hustle in the 2022 legislative session. We are happy that the excessive exposure to the facts helped kill three separate bills aimed at providing taxpayer funded private school scholarships to relatively few K-12 students in Georgia – including illegal aliens. The bills were HB 60, – HB 999 and SB 601. All of them were derived from model legislation provided by and pushed by an organization called American Federation for Children. The bills would have given the taxpayer funded money to a small fraction of the total K-12 student body in the state.
None of that model legislation contained any prohibition or device to stop the scholarships from going to illegal alien families.
One more time: Illegal aliens would have been included in the benefits while many American students and families would have been excluded because of limited funding that was subject to appropriati0ns.
I take the time to type this all again so that nobody forgets the corporate-funded “conservative” groups (hello, Buzz Brockway at the Georgia Center for Opportunity) that pushed these bills and lobbied so hard under the Gold Dome and the fact that they all withheld the whole truth from trusting voters.
I’ll add to this post when I get time to include a list of names but today we focus on ‘Frontline Policy Action’ run by Cole Muzio.
On the “who we are” page Frontline Policy Action describes their effort as “a state-focused, biblical organization that could tactfully address issues of life, religious freedom, educational opportunity, God’s design, human dignity, free speech, and principled government.”
Indeed.
Muzio still has the call to action on the Frontline website. In it he is telling people that the last “school choice!” bill to fail, SB 601, would have increased “educational opportunities for the vast majority of school children in the state…”
As gently as I can say it: Bull Feathers! This is simply not true. Again, the bills would have applied to a small fraction of K-12 students.
- Related: Our 2022 SB 601 file.
- Also related: Cole Muzio has blocked me on Twitter. LOL.
From the Frontline call to action page:
Georgia birth certificates can be amended to change sex (not our issue)
Where is the rest of the story?
From a WSB TV report taken from Google (I am happy to report that I have not watched TV news of any description since sometime mid-2017) – the Georgia High School Association, representing 463 high schools, voted unanimously to go back to their 2017 bylaws, which said all high school athletes must compete based on the gender that is on the athlete’s birth certificate.
What this story and the sound bytes I have heard on radio “news” doesn’t mention is that according to Georgia law (OCGA 31-10-23, paragraph (e) ), birth certificates can lawfully be amended to change the sex of an individual born in Georgia. See the link on the bottom of this post.
Section 31-10-23 – Amendment of certificates or reports
(e) “Upon receipt of a certified copy of a court order indicating the sex of an individual born in this state has been changed by surgical procedure and that such individual’s name has been changed, the certificate of birth of such individual shall be amended as prescribed by regulation.”
It seems relevant. It seems like part of the story.
This is not my issue and not the subject of this website. I put it here because I can.
Here is a link to the text of the entire state law. I am trying to find out exactly when paragraph (e) was added ( I think maybe 2004), what legislator was lead sponsor, who the cosponsors were, vote record and reasoning for the need for passage.
You can change genders on your Georgia drivers license too!
dak
Affidavit for Amendment (Form 3977) – Revised
Blocked! Georgians for School Choice #SB601
Pro-enforcement voters in Georgia want to hear about illegal immigration – in Georgia
Gwinnett County Sheriff’s public defiance of state law on checking immigration status of foreign-born prisoners should be “an issue”
Watch tonight’s debate here.
With time running out before the Republican Primary, ending the pretense on Governor Kemp and the ludicrous premise that he has fulfilled all his 2018 campaign promises is long past due. He hasn’t. We point to Kemp’s detailed but narrow 2018 campaign promises on illegal immigration in Georgia.
Likewise, since primary challenger and former U.S. Senator Perdue has finally brought up Kemp’s “Big Truck Trick” as related to removing illegal aliens in last Sunday’s debate, it is past time for Perdue to let voters know if he would do anything as governor regarding the organized crime that is illegal immigration – in Georgia. If so, what, exactly?
This writer is one of many pro-enforcement Independents whose vote in 2022 does not depend on what yarn we hear from either side about what happened in the 2020 election debacle. We are laser-focused on illegal immigration in Georgia and the needless dangers and miseries it imposes on Georgians.
While vying for the 2018 GOP candidacy, Kemp did not promise to send Georgia’s National Guard to the border. As Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies noted on NRO at the time, neither did he mention addressing the root cause of illegal immigration (spoiler: it’s illegal employment).
But candidate Kemp did repeatedly pledge to go after “criminal illegals.” He promised to create a public registry of criminal illegal aliens. He put out a detailed outline of legislation he promised to send to the General Assembly entitled “Brian Kemp’s Track and Deport Plan.”
“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” went the detailed assurance Kemp made on his 2018 campaign website.
None of it ever happened.
Related: Illegal immigration issue absent in eight-page, January 2022 Kemp campaign mailer
As this writer lamented last June (‘Kemp risks defeat by ignoring promises on illegal immigration action’), Kemp has alienated a significant number of voters by ignoring illegal immigration in Georgia. More so when he emphatically boasts that he has kept all his promises but responds to questions about his lack of action on criminal aliens in Georgia with “but the border…” as if all conservative voters are too dim to recognize the obfuscation.
Perhaps the most glaring example of executive abuse is Kemp’s refusal to direct his Attorney General to investigate and prosecute Georgia jailers who are in proud and public violation of a hard-fought public safety law regarding…criminal illegals.
The 2006 Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act (SB 529) created a state mandate that jailers check immigration status of foreigners in their jails and report illegal aliens to the feds. We invite all concerned to read the very short OCGA 42-4-14.
Then a state legislator, Kemp was Chairman of the Senate Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee that passed out the measure creating this regulation. “Many Georgians are “fed up” with illegal immigration,” he told the liberal AJC at the time. He voted in favor of final passage.
Compare the above-mentioned state law with the defiant public pledge made by Gwinnett County Sheriff Keybo Taylor– a jailer – at his swearing-in event on January 1, 2021: “What we will not be doing is notifying ICE of anybody’s immigration status in the jail or in any of our facilities.”
The Cobb Sheriff has taken a similar stance that was noted here last year – ‘Ga. Law: Jailers must report incarcerated illegal aliens to feds.’
Media silence
Over the course of 2021 this writer sent a “news tip” to virtually every news outlet in Atlanta on this matter. To our knowledge, the only news story on the topic came from the liberal AJC in the form of a celebratory item noting the one-year anniversary of the end of 287(g) in Cobb and Gwinnett counties.
“With 287(g) no longer in force, local jail officials have stopped systemically checking the immigration status of individuals arrested for a variety of crimes – including minor traffic violations – and sharing that information with immigration officials to initiate deportation proceedings” is how the editors at the “watchdog” AJC described the obvious defiance by Gwinnett Sheriff Keybo Taylor and others who ignore this law. The AJC headline was ‘There’s less fear’: Metro Atlanta immigrants feel safer with new sheriffs.’
Kemp’s first TV campaign ad in 2018 was all about ending “sanctuary” polices.
Perdue late to the obvious issue
Candidate Perdue has only very recently resorted to pointing to candidate Kemp’s failure to honor 2018 illegal immigration promises – and has not scratched the surface of this key issue. He’s late but it’s not too late. We say again: Many pro-enforcement voters are straining to hear some educated, detailed, and workable solutions to illegal immigration in Georgia from Perdue.
There is plenty of evidence that offended voters leave some choices blank on the ballot – or stay home.
Perdue can always resort to promising to enforce the many laws already on the books in Georgia aimed at making us less attractive to illegal immigration.
Let’s start with the Gwinnett County sheriff.
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A version of this essay originally ran on the subscription outlet Insider Advantage on April 27, 2020
D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com He has assisted state lawmakers with legislation since 2005.
Debit Cards For Illegals – How You Pay To Bring Illegal Migrants To The United States
AND magazine, Substack
April 22, 2022
Sam Faddis
Tony Blinken recently made a trip to Panama for a press conference and photo op with Panamanian authorities concerning migration north to the United States through their territory. The average American probably assumes that Blinken as Secretary of State was there to discuss ways to curb the flow of people northward.
That would be logical. It would also be very wrong.
It is, in fact, no longer the policy of the United States to stop illegal migration. It is now the formal policy of the United States to “manage migration.” Take a look at these quotes from Blinken’s remarks.
“So we have just concluded a set of ministerial meetings to discuss a challenge that affects all 22 countries represented here: managingmigration in our hemisphere.”
“Here in Panama, we talked about some of the most urgent aspects of this issue, including helping stabilize and strengthen communities that are hosting migrants and refugees; creating more legal pathways to reinforce safe, orderly, and humane migration.”
“We’re proud to be the largest humanitarian donor to international organizations in Panama, and their work complements Panama’s own assistance to migrants and refugees.”
Blinken was accompanied by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. His job is theoretically to keep our borders secure. His comments were, if anything, even more clear than Blinken’s. Mayorkas was not in Panama to talk about stopping illegal migration at all.
“So, our plans have a number of different components to them [among them] to build legal, orderly, and humane pathways so individuals do not need to place their lives, their well-beings, the well-beings of their loved ones, in the hands of smugglers and traffickers who only seek to exploit them for profit.”
Blinken and Mayorkas weren’t in Panama to talk about stopping migration north. On the contrary, they were there to discuss how to deepen American aid and support to Panamanian efforts to facilitate migration. Blinken and Mayorkas don’t want to leave migrants in the hands of traffickers. They want to expand an already extensive system of government support to illegal migration funded by the American taxpayer.
One of the ways the United States aids illegal migration is through funding of United Nations programs administered by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). IOM runs camps and helps migrants move north. It also hands out debit cards paid for by American taxpayers to migrants.
Photo I just took of a Honduran migrant woman’s United Nations-issued cash card, which provided 2,500 pesos a month for 4, the max in this one city of Tapachula, Mexico. All part of the UN “cash-based interventions” program I wrote about last month here: cis.org/Oped/United-Na…
Something called the Emergency Manual for IOM lays out procedures for handing out these debit cards. It also explains that IOM disburses cash to migrants and “movement assistance.”
In 2019 before Biden came to office and funding was dramatically expanded, the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), which provides U.S. funding to the IOM and many other United Nations agencies spent more than $60 million for activities in the northern part of South America, Central America, and Mexico. As of that time, the State Department was supporting at least 75 way-stations across the region to provide food and shelter for migrants moving north.
In effect, a giant conveyor belt has been constructed across Central America to the U.S. Mexican border. Largely funded by the American people, this machine moves migrants methodically north from way-station to way-station, housing migrants, feeding them and when necessary, just handing them cash. Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies described it to Breitbart News this way. recently
“It is definitely organized. They’re giving money out at way-stations up and down the [migrant] trail … There’s a process [in Tapachula]: You get your Mexican [visa] papers, then you go to the UN building next door, get an appointment, and they interview you and look at your situation… It’s not big money, and not all of them get it, but enough get it to sustain them so they don’t have to go home, and so they can go on to the next way station.
None of this is being done pursuant to a bill passed by Congress. The American people never looked at the world situation and decided to spend their money to help people enter our country illegally. In fact, the… more here.