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“At a recent (FOP) candidate event, both Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens and his challenger, David Cavender, took some questions from the audience, which included questions about 287(g).”

Center for Immigration Studies

Georgia Sheriff Misleads on 287(g) Program

Simply honoring ICE detainers is not the same as being a proactive partner with federal law enforcement

Updated 5:38 PM June 15: I think I repaired the typos. I inserted a few more links to educate the reader. dak

Immigration “reform” and a “path to citizenship” would be the largest single addition to Democrat voter roles in history.

When asked about his “…priority immigration legislation for the country” if elected to congress in the June 9, 2024 GA 03 candidate debate in Atlanta, Mike Dugan replied with an immediate reference to immigration “reform.”

Q: “Senator, while you were working in the State House, you worked on several Georgia-specific ways to regulate immigration. If elected into Congress, the picture gets much bigger in what you could do. What would be your priority immigration legislation for the country?

Mike Dugan: “I think I would… It’s a two-part deal. Uh, first, before we do any immigration reform, we have to shut down the border. The- the border situation right now, it’s a- it’s a local public safety issue, it’s a humanitarian issue, it’s a national security issue. Until we shut that down with federal government working in coordination with the states, not in opposition to, we can’t really discuss immigration reform. Once it… border is shut down, then we do need to take a long, hard look at immigration reform ’cause we need new people coming into the country. We need skill sets that we had… don’t have readily available up in the numbers that we need here in- in the U.S. So that there… It’s a two-part deal, and you can’t do both of ’em at the same time.”

Audio:

A heads-up from here for trusting Republican voters voters who only read the daily headlines and get their “facts” from “the news”: On immigration, “reform” is the establishment code for amnesty. Legalization – like 1986. Make ’em legal – like 1986. Give them a work permit. It’s the mo’ money answer to illegal immigration that has been tossed out by politicians for the twenty years I have been active on immigration. Dugan’s answer is that we will “shut down” the border then we will “reform” immigration so as to create more (legal) workers and then we will import more immigrants because we need “skill sets.”

It’s amnesty and increased immigration – and “we’ll tell you when the border is ‘shut down’. Trust us.”

• Related reading: “Immigration Reform” Equals Amnesty for Illegal Aliens and Their Employers

If voting Republicans were allowed even a shred of useful education and knowledge on the immigration reality and what happened in 1986, Dugan would likely only get votes from the business community.

This pro-enforcement advocate watched Dugan in the state Senate for the entire eleven years he was there. While not very illegal immigration vote he made was bad, many were horrible in that he went along with the “anything for a buck” agenda of the real bosses of much of Georgia state government – The Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Big Ag and the lobbyists for business interests.

Perhaps the most memorable is Dugan’s support for the 2023 Democrat bill, SB 264 as second signer. That beauty was pushed by a lobbyist for the refugee industry, Darlene Lynch (she/her). Lynch boasts of her partnership with the Georgia Chamber in something they call “Business and Immigration for Georgia (“BIG”)and uses that connect to sell bills to wayward Republicans who are directed to create a larger work force quicker at any cost. (Lynch once promoted the idea of reciprocity in occupational licenses not only with other states, but other nations.)

SB 264 with lead sponsor Democrat Kim Jackson was dropped in the state Senate in February of 2023. When it was presented in the GOP-run Senate Higher Education Committee, it was Lynch who did most of the talking. The entire purpose of the bill was to change long standing state law on the requirement that newly arrived Georgia residents live in the state for twelve months before they can be regarded as “residents” for purposes of instate tuition at our taxpayer funded colleges and tech schools. With Dugan as the number two sponsor, the language of the bill would have allowed foreign nationals who came to the U.S. as refugees, “Special Visa Immigrants” (mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan) and recipients of the biden administration’s seemingly endless “humanitarian parole” to skip the waiting twelve month period – they would have been eligible for the huge reduction in tuition of instate tuition the day they arrived here. Americans moving here from Michigan and the rest of the nation would still be required to wait for a year before qualifying for the lower tuition rate.

I referred to SB 264, Sen. Mike Dugan cosponsor, as (yet another) “Americans last” measure.

It gets worse. When I wrote about the legislation in my regular column in Dugan’s home town newspaper, The (Carroll County) Star News, the editor gave my copy to Dugan who was able to write a rebuttal in the same edition. Point by point Dugan misrepresents the bill and even told readers it had never even seen a hearing – and that it didn’t;t matter anyway because the bill was dead because the 2023 session had ended. The fact is that I watched the hearing, and that Georgia runs on a biennial system for the legislature- the bill was quite alive for the 2024 session. I think he had Lynch write his response to me and never even checked it.

• You can read about that bizarre response and my fact check here.

There is a lot more, but if voters liked Paul Ryan and John McCain on immigration, they should look forward to Mike Dugan going to Washington.

I know very little about Dugan’s primary runoff opponent.

Scott Ryfun

Brian Kemp as quoted by 11 Alive news and delivered here today by Georgia pundit.

[Discussing HB 1105, “The Georgia Criminal Alien Track and Report Act of 2024”:]

“This is a state of almost 11 million people,” he said. “And I think people were outraged, and I was too about the whole Laken Riley tragic murder that we saw and somebody that had broken into this country illegally and had been apprehended two different times and was still here, you know, and we didn’t even know he was here.”

Kemp said they talked to municipalities, sheriff’s offices, and others about the bill.

“I think at the end of the day; we got a good piece of legislation that will help with the issue here, to make sure when somebody gets arrested that we’re, you know, checking to make sure that they’re here legally.”

• Update: Sen.Larry Walker prevailed in the Primary Election. Tori Branum garnered 23% of the total votes cast. Sen. Shawn Still has not apologized for misrepresenting a record of service in the military. Peach State Values spent $23K to defeat Branum. Walker is rumored to be considering a run for Georgia Secretary of State in 2026. Details here.

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A Republican state Senator back tracks on veteran status, another Republican state Senator and candidate for reelection removes his name from positions on a political PAC just before a former U.S. Marine candidate for the GA Senate office is falsely smeared by the same PAC: Senate District 20.

Georgians who want some insight into some integrity-free political shenanigans involved in state legislative campaigns should consider the GOP Primary race in southern Middle Georgia’s Senate District 20.

Elected in 2015 2014, Senator Larry Walker III (R- Perry) is the incumbent and is quite willing to prove his determination to keep the job. Readers may remember Walker from March when the General Assembly passed one of his anti-enforcement, business-first, “we need more workers!” bills, SB 354. Because it dismantles the existing immigration check involved in occupational licensing for some low skilled jobs in Georgia, this writer worked unsuccessfully to see that measure vetoed.

Larry Walker has a primary opponent in Ms. Tori Branum, a U.S. Marine for eight years with an honorable discharge and who is a now single mother. Two of Branum’s kids are military veterans. A marksmanship instructor when she was on active duty in the Marines, Branum owns and operates ‘Middle Georgia Female Firearms training’ and lives in Dublin, GA.

Branum would make a terrific conservative Republican state senator. She is pro-enforcement on immigration. She says she would not have voted for SB 354.

Dedicated county GOP leaders often urge ordinary citizens to run for office. Apparently that desire does not extend to everyone in the Republican state Senate caucus. At least one Senator, Shawn Still (R – Norcross) spent considerable time on a March 5 phone call with Branum trying to convince her to drop out of the race against his pal Larry Walker.

At one point in that recorded and online-posted conversation, Still tells Branum that her campaign quest is akin to a “Kamikaze run” because Walker runs the GOP senate caucus PAC. Branum explains to Still that  “…as an American veteran, I have a right to run for office in my country.” Still quickly shot back with what sounds a lot like a direct order: “Tori, don’t, don’t ever say that to me again. I am too. I’ve served proudly, and you don’t need to throw that in my face.”

Still’s claim to past military service caught my ear because I had already read his short bio on the “about Shawn” page of his ‘shawnstill.com’ campaign website. There, Still informs voters that “he attended the University of Alabama as a swimmer and U. S. Air Force ROTC cadet. Diploma in hand and preparing to attend flight school, the end of the Cold War and the election of President Bill Clinton abruptly cancelled Shawn’s plans along with those of most other would-be second lieutenants in the USAF. As a result, he pursued a variety of civilian careers…”

Unable to imagine how the end of the Cold War in 1989-ish and the election of Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992 could have possibly stopped Shawn Still from becoming an Air Force officer, I asked him for clarification. In his reply he backtracked and explained that he was really never in the military. He is not a veteran. His full response is posted on my blog. As I write, USMC veteran Tori Branum has not received an apology from Republican state Senator Shawn Still.

In 2018, Larry Walker, the District 20 Republican state Senator, registered the Peach State Values Inc. with the GA Secretary of State – it’s a PAC and is known to send scathing, semi-accurate mailers and Facebook ads during the election season aimed at various candidates – including fellow Republicans – for legislative office. From its inception six years ago, Walker was listed as the CEO, COO and Secretary of The Peach State Values Inc. That changed on April 30^th, 2024 when an amended annual report was filed with the SoS office that showed a transfer of those corporate positions to another Republican state Senator, Matt Brass of Newnan.

• Bonus education for Facebook users: Middle Georgia Female Firearms training – Tori Branum 

At least one of the Peach State Values PAC Facebook campaign ads went out in early May aimed at the Senate District 20 race. It was a smear directed at Tori Branum stating that she has a “criminal record.” She doesn’t. You can see a screen shot of that smear on the Dustin Inman Society website.

 Republicans who want to clean out the increasingly odiferous state Senate swamp should be asking why Walker and Brass arranged to replace Walker on the official corporate record at the Secretary of State office.

I asked them both. Walker told me to ask Brass. Brass did not reply.

It could be that it is a violation of campaign finance laws for a PAC to coordinate with a political campaign.

Campaign finance is not this writer’s area of expertise, but the complaint I will file against Walker and Brass for coordinating and strategizing to smear Tori Branum and promote Walkers reelection with their PAC will cite OCGA 21-5-3(15) that I found on page 2, here.

According to Ballotpedia the annual state legislative base salary is $23,341.72  plus a per diem of $247 during the legislative session.

There is more to this story of the merciless attacks from the Larry Walker camp on Tori Branum. Space does not allow me to expand but readers and voters should be asking what drives Larry Walker and his Senate pals to so dishonestly attack an honest, pro-enforcement fellow Republican challenger.

We don’t think it’s the state salary that comes with the office.