Rep Bonnie Rich – @DAKDIS Tweet, Feb 2021
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Rep Charlice Byrd’s October, 2021 guest column in Insider Advantage Georgia HB 228
The below guest column is posted from the subscription news outlet Insider Advantage Georgia. I added a few links and photos to further educate readers.
Secure Non-Citizens’ ID Now– Before New Elections
As a Georgia legislator, there is one topic that continues to be on the minds of voters from my district and across the state – election integrity. Despite having adopted some election changes in the state earlier this year, there is still an uneasiness about whether we can have a secure election in 2022 and beyond.
With tens of thousands of illegal aliens crossing our southern border daily and others overstaying their visas and the federal government failing to uphold the rule of law, it is up to states to protect their citizens and secure their elections.
Many Georgians may be shocked to learn that our state issues a driver’s license and official identification to foreign nationals nearly identical to what our citizens obtain and use when they exercise their right to vote. The only difference is non-citizens’ cards are stamped with the words “LIMITED TERM” at the top.
After the 2020 election debacle, it’s even more alarming that we don’t have a specific state law that outlaws the use of these non-citizen licenses or ID cards from being used as proper identification for voting purposes.
This loophole in election security should be closed without delay because we don’t know how many poll workers are accepting these forms of identification. That’s why I have introduced House Bill 228 with a long list of co-sponsors in the Georgia House. It needs to be voted into law before the 2022 elections.
HB 228 was the target of a great deal of false testimony during its sole hearing earlier this year. It would forbid the acceptance of such licenses and ID cards issued to non-citizens for voting purposes.
Wouldn’t you think this would be a no-brainer? Our Constitution says only US citizens have the right to vote. But there are special interests that once again want to leave that door open.
My legislation would also require the state Department of Drivers Services to add language “BEARER NOT U.S. CITIZEN – NOT VOTER ID” to all licenses and ID cards issued to non-citizens. This would remove any possibility or confusion of acceptance in the voting process in future elections.
To address mail-in voting issues, the DDS would be required to change the numbering system of these licenses and IDs so the first two characters begin with NC for “non-citizen.”
Georgians should know that Rep. Bee Nguyen of Gwinnett County – a candidate for Secretary of State– has introduced a bill to give all illegal immigrants in Georgia a driver’s card and a state ID card. Obviously, she is paving the way for them to vote. That’s something we cannot have and our founders did not intend.
My legislation is simple, common-sense solution to add a degree of security to Georgia’s voting process while alleviating any potential confusion for poll workers and election volunteers.
As we learned with the mail-in ballot crisis last year, it’s always better to have loopholes closed and security in place before an election disaster then trying to mend a crisis once an election is in disarray. This could be one of those preventive steps.
Without election integrity, our nation will have no confidence in our government. Our nation will crumble. We are at a crossroads after the 2020 election, and it is time to do all we can to insure that only those who are legally able to vote cast their ballots. The future of our nation depends upon it.
Byrd is a Republican state representative from Woodstock. She represents District 20 in the Georgia House.
Looking For A Better Life: Armed Illegal Aliens Caught Trying to Sneak Across the Border
SanAngeloLive.com
January 4, 2022
EDINBURG, TX – Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents disrupted three human smuggling attempts last week that led to arrest of 20 individuals
On Dec. 28, McAllen Border Patrol Station (MCS) agents observed multiple people emerge from a nearby field near the Rio Grande and run towards an awaiting Dodge Durango. As agents approached the vehicle, the suspected illegal immigrants quickly exited the vehicle and ran back into the field as the driver sped off. Agents searched the area and apprehended nine subjects who were illegally present in the United States. The driver and a passenger were later arrested by Border Patrol.
After interviewing the driver and passenger, agents determined they were both nationals from Mexico illegally present in the country. They were placed under arrest.
Jan. 2, agents working at the Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint referred a vehicle to the secondary inspection area for further inspection. During questioning, agents determined one of the passengers was illegally present in the United States. All subjects were placed under arrest and escorted into the checkpoint for processing. – more here.
Wanted: Free flight to U.S. from Haiti
AFP via Getty Images / Paul Ratje
Nefarious border goal: Motive behind ‘whip hoax’ suit
New York Post – Dec 27, 2021
Mark Krikorian
Haitian illegal immigrants involved in this fall’s Border Patrol “whipping” hoax in Del Rio, Texas, are suing the Biden administration, with the help of anti-borders groups. If all goes according to plan, all three of these parties — the illegal immigrants, the administration and the anti-borders groups — will win.
It’s clear what the former illegal immigrants themselves — now back in Haiti — want: a free flight to the United States so they can apply for asylum. As a practical matter, that would mean they’d be able to live here forever, whatever the eventual outcome of their asylum cases.
The Biden administration likewise has a clear agenda. It has shown over the past year a bedrock belief in the principle of unlimited immigration and only resorted to deporting a small share of the Haitians under that bridge in Texas because it feared the political fallout of the news pictures. So it’s unlikely to put up much of a defense in this case, and if it were to “lose,” it would be able to shift responsibility for the inevitable surge in Haitian arrivals by saying its hands were tied by the courts.
But the motives of the third set of actors in this game — the nonprofit legal groups actually filing the lawsuit — are a mix of profit and policy. The overriding goal, of course, is to open the borders. The lead anti-borders group involved, the Innovation Law Lab, actually sells shirts with images titled “Migration Is Sacred” and “Unbuild The Wall.”
Cost of doing business
Another, the Justice Action Center, includes on its board an activist who describes herself on Twitter as an “Abolitionist” — i.e., for abolishing immigration controls. The group was founded by longtime anti-borders crusader Karen Tumlin, who led the successful lawfare campaign against Arizona’s modest attempt during the Obama administration to deter illegal immigration.
That’s why the lawsuit is demanding a variety of orders from the court, the net effect of which would be to open the borders to any and all Haitians who want to move here. That the Haitians weren’t whipped, and the Border Patrol agents were simply holding reins of horses to prevent them from illegally crossing the border? That doesn’t matter — one photograph is worth completely upending our immigration policies…, More here.
Mass Migration Through Panama’s Darien Gap Destroying an Indigenous Tribe – and Human Rights Organizations Don’t Care
‘There are no organizations that are fighting for our human rights’
WASHINGTON, DC – The leader of the Embera Tribe left his jungle homeland in Panama’s Darien Gap and came to the nation’s capital last week with an SOS message to the American people: a record-setting mass migration through his reservation, spurred by President Joe Biden as soon as he entered office this year, is destroying the tribe’s traditional ways of life at a pace beyond living memory and corrupting its people to an entirely unacknowledged extent
Mayor Francisco Agapi, who heads 29 villages in and around the isolated Embera tribal capital of Bajo Chaquito, spoke publicly for the first time of his tribe’s plight on December 7 while serving on a panel about the Darien Gap migrant passage hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, which sponsored his travel from Panama.
Some 35,000 of the agrarian Embera live largely from jungle rivers along the Panama-Colombia border, right where the Darien Gap migrant pathways have emptied a record estimated 100,000 migrants from more than 100 nations (10 times the usual annual numbers) on their way to the U.S. southern border, a great many drawn by word of lenient Biden administration policies that show no sign of lifting in its remaining three years.
During the panel and later to several Republican members of Congress, Mayor Agapi expressed puzzlement as to why human rights groups that protect indigenous tribes – and a Panamanian government interested only in moving them into the next country – have forsaken his tribe’s new problems in favor of facilitating the historic migrant tide he believes is causing them. Front and center among these is a food insecurity crisis that developed in 2021. The Embera leader said not a single advocacy group for indigenous peoples has reached out to assess how the tribe is managing the 2021 migrant swell through its territory.
“One of the rights that we’re fighting for – human rights – is just our sustenance, because a lot of these immigrants are passing through our fields. They take a lot of our crop, so a lot of folks are without food, without crops,” Mayor Agapi explained as one ill effect of the mass migration swamping his tribe. “And we’re the only ones that are fighting for this. There are no other organizations that are recognizing that this is a problem and fighting for us.
“There are no organizations that are fighting for our human rights.”
Food insecurity has spiked not just because thousands of hungry migrants are taking the harvests. With so much easy money coming in for transporting and guiding the migrants, many Embera men have abandoned their duties to plant new crops for these new endeavors, or to hunt and fish.
“Especially in the last few months, it’s been a terrible problem for us.”
Of primary concern to Mayor Agapi is the corrupting influence of cash the migrants offer the Embera for guiding and transportation services, previously unimaginable sudden relative wealth that most young people are ill-equipped to manage.
“The problem is that, honestly, the immigrants bring money with them,” he said. “That’s the source of the problems.”
This year, the money fueled a rash of alcoholism and cocaine use among Embera youth. A typical fee for a ride aboard a motorized Embera canoe, which can carry more than 100 at a time, is $25 per migrant. Hundreds of such boats move constantly along rivers from to ferry migrants fresh out of the Gap into Embera villages and eventually into Panamanian government hands. The Panamanian government, which sees a national interest in ensuring the migrants keep moving to the next country, maintains hospitality camps near the Pan-American Highway and facilitates bus transport on it north to Costa Rica, as CIS was first to report in late 2018.
With this year’s shift to modern money, he said, the tribe’s youth are spending proceeds on cocaine and alcohol, becoming addicted and tearing families apart. Some are leaving the community for extended periods to use drugs in Panama City and transport them back to the jungle for sale to others.
“The first problem is alcohol, especially in our younger generation. So when they become alcoholics, then it becomes a family problem between married couples,” he explained.
Mayor Agapi said the Panamanian government is entirely indifferent to the tribe’s sufferings, showing only overriding interest in helping the migrants who are causing them.
In a moment of somewhat pained candor, Mayor Agapi did describe another problem besetting the tribe that has drawn government attention: some Embera men are using hunting rifles passed down from father to son for generations to rob and rape the migrants in the jungle.
During his Washington trip last week, the Embera leader said he was traveling among the villages to warn men to stop these terrible abuses. But he also acknowledged that he had little power to do much more than persuade his people that such crime is not part of Embera culture and to work with police… More here from CIS.org.
Anti-enforcement immigration activist announces run for Georgia state senate #JasonEsteves #GALEO
Update: Feb 10, 2023. Esteves is now a state senator in Georgia.
Jason Esteves immediate past Chairman of GALEO board
Add this name to the long watch list in Georgia’s increasingly turbulent political scene. Jason Esteves, former Chair and a current “board member at large” of the far-left, corporate-funded GALEO Inc. has launched his campaign for the state senate. Esteves is currently the Atlanta School Board president.
Current state Sen. Jen Jordan is leaving her Senate district to run for state attorney general. Esteves seeks to replace her in the east Cobb/Fulton County District 6.
Readers may remember that another GALEO board member, then State Court Judge Dax Lopez, saw his Obama nomination for a seat on the U.S. District Court in Georgia’s Northern District sink in early 2016 as a direct result of his ties to the extremist outfit. Now candidate for governor and then U.S. Senator and Judiciary Committee member David Perdue bravely nixed the confirmation in the face of the establishment push for Republican Lopez’ approval.
There was massive opposition to the Lopez pick from conservative elected officials and howls from the GOP grassroots.
GALEO is known for advancing the cause of driver’s licenses for illegal aliens and lobbying against immigration enforcement, voter ID, official English for government and ICE holds. But they do support immigration amnesty. While smearing law enforcement officers, GALEO leadership joined the ACLU and the SPLC in a lawsuit against Georgia’ 2011 (HB 87) ‘Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act.’
Full disclosure: Including with our “Beginner’s Guide to GALEO,” the Dustin Inman Society of which this writer is president and founder led the fight against putting a GALEO board member and fundraiser on the federal bench.
Related: History and agenda of the above mentioned MALDEF
GALEO’s CEO Jerry Gonzalez brought focus to the group after he escorted illegal aliens into the state senate chamber to lobby against a 2006 bill (SB 529) targeting illegal immigration. In 2011 the Rome Tribune reported that security officials had escorted an angry Gonzalez from Coosa Country Club after he screamed at diminutive state Rep. Katie Dempsey at a lunch meeting focused on use of the E-Verify system for employment eligibility verification.
Voters may want to gauge judgment and priorities by noting that their reputation did not stop senate candidate Jason Esteves from later joining the GALEO board.
Esteves is also chairman of GALEO’s innocuously named but well funded ‘Latino Development Fund,’ which is dedicated to training future community organizers to follow up on the path set by Gonzalez.
GALEO boasts of its partnership with UGA’s J.W. Fanning Institute in this education. See also the ‘GALEO Leadership Council’ – “develop your leadership skills and support the Latinx community in Georgia.”
Sam Zamarripa, who went on to become a state senator known for opposition to immigration enforcement founded GALEO in 2003. Jane Fonda is but one American luminary on the long (and perhaps surprising, to many) list of “Founding Friends’ (#32).
*Update, Dec 17, 2021. Related: GALEO CEO Jerry Gonzalez wrote a guest column posted Dec. 15 on the liberal Georgia Recorder website urging the U.S. Senate to pass the amnesty provisions in the Democrat “Build Back Better” bill and to use that as a “stepping stone” to “passing citizenship for all.” That’s right. All. Everybody. Including the illegal aliens flooding the southern border right now. And tomorrow. And next year. It’s open borders. Read Jerry’s words here. We happily note that the Senate parliamentarian killed the amnesty provision in the ‘BBB’ bill last night.
“I’m running for state senate to fight for a brighter future,” says Esteves who serves as Treasurer of the Democratic Party of Georgia. “In his first year (as Atlanta School Board Chair – 2018), the Board adopted an Equity Policy and Anti-Racism Resolution that eventually led to the creation of the Center for Equity and Social Justice. He oversaw the process of renaming buildings with hurtful legacies,” reads his campaign site.
We may have lost count, but it appears that if he were to be elected, it would make at least three GALEO-associated state senators. Esteves would join former GALEO board member and Founding Friend Jason Anavitarte and Founding Friend Nan Orrock in the Georgia senate.
D.A. King is proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com and president of the Dustin Inman Society.
A version of this column originally ran on the subscription news outlet Insider Advantage Georgia December 10, 2021.
Biden’s Amnesty to Cost Americans Nearly $500B Over 20 Years
Breitbart News
John Binder
Dec. 6, 2021
A plan by President Joe Biden to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens would cost American taxpayers nearly $500 billion over the course of two decades, a new analysis reveals.
Late last month, House Democrats passed the filibuster-proof “Build Back Better” reconciliation package which includes an amnesty for nearly seven million illegal aliens. Effectively, millions of illegal aliens would be able to secure parole through the legislation and thus be shielded from deportation while gaining work permits to compete against working class Americans for jobs.
A new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) states that over a 20-year period, the amnesty will cost American taxpayers more than $483 billion, based on figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Center for Immigration Studies
CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota writes that much of the cost is a result of the amnesty’s opening a number of federal welfare programs to illegal aliens:
The primary reason a parole amnesty would result in large new expenditures according to the CBO is that amnesty recipients would be able to receive Affordable Care Act subsidies, Medicaid, the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, often called food stamps), Social Security, and Medicare to a much greater extent than they would without legal status. [Emphasis added]
Though providing a look into the fiscal cost of the amnesty plan, the CBO figures do not factor in the millions to billions in lost wages and jobs that such a plan may have as illegal aliens would be legally allowed to compete for jobs against Americans.
Specifically, the amnesty would allow illegal aliens to obtain work permits, driver’s licenses, and documents to travel abroad for at least a decade so long as they can prove that they have been residing in the United States since 2010…
More here.
Even Trump omits illegal immigration in Georgia as a campaign “issue”
While he ignored the root causes of illegal immigration in a state with more illegal aliens than Arizona and more illegals than green card holders, in 2018 candidate and now-Gov. Brian Kemp made several very clear, detailed and oft-repeated campaign promises on “criminal illegals.” He has been defiant in completely ignoring those promises since then. We have diligently documented this defiance (here and here as file examples).
The Cobb County Republicans went so far as to censure him for exactly this reason.
The hope was that a viable primary opponent may provide some pressure for Gov. Kemp to at least make a comment or small move to appear concerned about the issue or to take action for the 2022 election.
Former Democrat and now Republican candidate Vernon Jones has been careful to avoid the matter or use Kemp’s broken promises as talking points.
So maybe, many people thought, newly announced Trump-endorsed candidate former Sen. David Perdue will take up the fact that Kemp is silent on illegal immigration in Georgia and make some promises of his own on the crisis. Not so far. Perdue’s initial “issues” are listed below.
We cannot help but notice that even former President Donald Trump – who won the presidency largely on the illegal immigration topic – was careful to avoid illegal immigration in his outline of “why vote for Perdue” and to stay away from Kemp’s anti-enforcement defiance.
David Perdue’s “Bold Vision”
Taken from David Perdue candidacy announcement video – 11 Alive TV news, Atlanta
*Eliminate state income tax.
*Make cities and state safe again.
*Take charge of our schools/put parents in charge again.
*Fight Biden’s overreaching mandates.
*Not allow Stacey Abrams control of elections..
_
Trump outline of Perdue agenda in endorsement
Taken from The Hill – “Trump endorses David Perdue in Georgia’s governor race.”
“Most importantly, he can’t win because the MAGA base—which is enormous—will never vote for him,” Trump said. “David Perdue will
*eliminate the Income Tax,
*secure the Elections,
*defend the Second Amendment,
*support our great Farmers,
*get crime in Atlanta and other places under control,
*take care of our great Vets,
*and put parents back in charge of the schools,” Trump added.
_
So, no illegal immigration? No “criminal illegals…?”
We will be very grateful if someone points out something we overlooked.
Complete coverage of GA. House Study Committee “Innovative Ways to Maximize Global Talent”: Foreign cops & lower college tuition for illegals than Americans, anyone? * #HB120
* Georgia House committee with immigration focus solicits one-sided, activist input (1/4) Here
* Will Georgia legalize foreign police officers? – House committee on “barriers” to foreign nationals meeting again in Dalton, Sept 9 (2/4) Here.
* House committee on ‘barriers’ lacks transparency, continues one-sided agenda, escapes responsible media coverage in Dalton (3/4) Here.
* Handpicked witnesses to House committee on “foreign born”: Lower tuition cost for illegal aliens; expand state government, relax immigration verification … 4/4 Here.
In which Savannah Morning News editor Adam Van Zimmer refers to former U.S. Senator David Perdue as a “rube” – and I reply. An exchange #Book
A Kemp-Perdue primary? Why Georgia Republicans are sabotaging own 2022 election chance
Former President Donald Trump’s vendetta against Georgia’s governor could lead to 2022 primary challenge from former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, dooming GOP hopes of winning the governorship again
November 10 2021
Savannah Morning News
This is a column by Opinion Editor Adam Van Brimmer.
Georgia Republicans set a new standard for self-destructive political behavior in the 2020 election and runoffs.
The saboteurs seem intent on further undermining their party in 2022.
Word is that David Perdue is the rube meant to challenge election scapegoat Brian Kemp in the 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary. This is the same David Perdue who, just 10 months ago, lost to a little known political newcomer, Jon Ossoff, in a U.S. Senate runoff.
Somewhere, Stacey Abrams’ interior designer is finalizing redecorating plans for the Georgia governor’s mansion.
How Joe Biden turned Georgia purple:A closer look at the 2020 campaign in a battleground state
Georgia’s once-vaunted Republican political machine is seizing up like a turbo-charged engine without oil. Former President Donald Trump’s “rigged election” nonsense disenfranchised tens of thousands of GOP voters ahead of the January runoffs. The cost was two Senate seats and majority control of the chamber.
Read the rest here.
Read my first reply here.
The reply from Mr.Van Brimmer: “Thanks for the submission. Please cut to 250 words and resubmit for consideration as a letter. Please know that because you live outside our coverage area I cannot guarantee publication as local readers get preference.”
Me, in an email reply: “How many words for guest column?”
Mr. Van Brimmer, Nov 12: “Good morning. I do not solicit guest columns. We print community voices op-eds, but as you do not reside in our community, that’s not appropriate. Again. please trim your piece to 250 words or less and submit as a letter to the editor for consideration.”
My second (edited into an LTE reply (Nov 12 subject line “250 on the nose and I put my money line in as headline. Thanks for your consideration.”)
“Kemp seems to be taking a Joe Biden position on illegal immigration in Georgia.
Thousands of resentful pro-enforcement independent voters have memories that go all the way back to 2018. Kemp ran largely on illegal immigration.
We will not vote for Kemp again because of his defiant refusal to even mention his campaign promise on illegal immigration and what he termed “criminal illegals” – the politically protected “undocumented workers” who are murdering, raping, kidnapping and molesting innocent Georgians.
Candidate Kemp promised to create a registry of illegal aliens who have committed additional crimes and to see state legislation passed to address sanctuary cities. He told us he has a “big truck” in case he has to deport criminal illegals himself. But since then – and while he makes well-publicized trips to Texas – Kemp has remained as silent as thirty pieces of silver on the issue as applied to Georgia.
Georgians are being murdered, raped, kidnapped and molested by illegal aliens while the liberal media sits on these stories. Despite a 2006 state law in place (OCGA 42-4-14) requiring all jailers to check immigration status of incoming prisoners and to report illegal aliens to ICE, we watch here as at least two metro Atlanta-area sheriffs boast that they will not comply and other jailers are in silent violation.
We won’t vote for Kemp because of the betrayal factor and because we see Georgia inching ever closer to becoming the California of the East – “Georgiafornia.” We would welcome the introduction of a proven pro-enforcement, genuine conservative Republican candidate for Georgia governor – Trump or no Trump.
D.A. King
Marietta
King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society and a nationally recognized authority on illegal immigration.
Another email response from Mr. Van Brimmer “OK but … headlines need to fit in two decks in the narrow column. Usually 4-6 words depending on how long the words are.”
My reply:” Up to you. Thanks. How about “Kemp defiant on 2018 campaign pledge.”
Me again in separate email minutes later (in drive-thru at bank) “Maybe you’ll have room to insert money line into letter body….” I then sent him two memes we use to quote candidate Kemp on “criminal illegals”
Mr. Van Brimmer replies:
“Mr. King. You are testing my patience. Let me make one thing very clear – you submit a letter that fits the guidelines, and if you want a special headline, you submit that headline that fits the guidelines. If you are not comfortable with that, you can always publish your response yourself on social media. As you are out of market and according to our circ department are not a subscriber, the only reason I will publish your piece is because it is a direct response to something we published and we value alternative views on local (state in this case) issues.
Put bluntly, neither I nor my editorial assistant exist to cater to your demands.
Thanks.”
I have not heard from Mr. Van Zimmer since I sent him the below reply and I cannot see that he ran my letter.
Me:
“Oh.
I hope you run my letter.
I was trying to suggest a headline. Not make a demand.
Next time I am in town maybe we can have lunch.
Have a nice weekend.
dak”
