Take part in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Power Hour Virtual Phone Bank, giving supporters like you the ability to encourage voters in the South get out the vote, recruit people to work the polls and to register to vote.
Using your own phone in your own home, the SPLC Power Hour Virtual Phone Bank will provide you with a complete script, the name and phone numbers of voters, and easy-to-follow instructions to record the results of your conversation.
We hope to see you as we continue our weekly Power Hour Virtual Phone Banks.
The SPLC alert came the same day as a Fox News story reporting “Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has been urged by 100 prominent Orthodox Jewish rabbis across the U.S. to cut ties between the company’s AmazonSmile charitable initiative and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News.” Entire Fox News report here.
Image: Twitter
The SPLC email reporting their success in Atlanta and promoting the September 10 ‘Power Hour’ is pasted below:
“We’re thrilled to report that our weekly SPLC Power Hours in support of voting rights are making a difference!
September 10 – Georgia Absentee Ballot Application Power HourJoin SPLC supporters from across the country in helping people vote absentee in Georgia!Last Tuesday, Sept. 1, was National Poll Worker Recruitment Day. Election officials across the country had reported critical shortages of poll workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of our Power Hour on Thursday, SPLC supporters had made thousands of phone calls into Georgia and successfully recruited over 200 new poll workers in Fulton County (Atlanta) alone!For this week’s SPLC Power Hour, we are continuing to help make the process of voting in Georgia as safe and secure as possible by alerting voters to Georgia’s new online absentee ballot request portal. Georgia voters need no excuse to vote absentee, and for the first time, they can submit their application to receive an absentee ballot online.Using your own phone in your own home, you can help make sure Georgia voters know about the absentee ballot options available to them.The SPLC Power Hour Virtual Phone Bank will provide you with a complete script, the names and phone numbers of voters, and easy-to-follow instructions to record the results of your conversation.Georgia Absentee Ballot Application Power HourThursday, Sept. 103-4 p.m. Eastern Time**The Virtual Phone Bank will be open from 3-8 p.m. Eastern Time to allow for the maximum number of people to join!Sign up below!”
“Let’s hope that the next at-large criminal alien operation also includes arrests of drug dealers, drunk drivers, fraudsters, burglars, car thieves, illegal aliens in possession of dangerous weapons, illegal aliens who live or work with criminal aliens, unlucky non-criminal illegal aliens — and employers of illegal aliens.”
By Jessica Vaughn, Center for Immigration Studies
Jessica Vaughn. Photo: Twitter
ICE announced this week the results of a summer surge operation to arrest criminal aliens who were at large in communities around the country. ICE officers arrested more than 2,000 aliens with convictions or pending charges for “crimes involving victims”. Such operations are routine for ICE, but it is also routinely startling to see the litany of victimizations that occurred, and routinely infuriating that sanctuary jurisdictions continue to protect these offenders, making it necessary for ICE to take to the streets to arrest them, hopefully before there are new victims.
Interested readers can see the (scant) information on the operation here. ICE provides a breakdown of the crimes, but not of the cities or states of the arrests. The targets included a variety of types of cases, including criminal aliens released by sanctuaries, suspects wanted in their home countries, and aliens who skipped out on their proceedings. Some likely will be removed promptly, others will be detained for immigration court proceedings, and others might be released pending proceedings.
Reportedly, the operation initially was conceived to focus on domestic violence offenders in response to concerns in many communities of rising incidents of domestic violence due to the pandemic lockdowns. More than 500 of those arrested in this surge had convictions or charges for domestic violence, which was the second most common offense of those arrested, after assault.
The quarterly reports of ICE’s VOICE office, which provides services to victims of criminal aliens, are a reminder of the importance of this mission. In the first quarter of 2019 (the most recent available), the VOICE office fielded more than 250 calls for help and referred more than 230 callers to ICE field offices to receive services in their communities. For example:
A parent and their minor child, victims of domestic violence by an alien, requested case information and wanted to provide a victim impact statement. The parent feared for their family’s lives because the alien continued to evade a no-contact order while in state custody awaiting criminal proceedings. The VOICE Office referred the victims for victim assistance services and facilitated their request to provide a victim impact statement. The VOICE Office informed the victim the alien was ordered removed by an immigration judge and subsequently deported from the United States.
In another:
A victim of domestic violence by an alien requested case information. The VOICE Office informed the victim that the alien was in ICE custody and helped the victim register for DHS-VINE [VINE is ICE’s automated victim notification service that enables victims to receive updates on the custody status of the offender]. The alien was eventually ordered removed by an immigration judge and deported from the United States. However, following the alien’s removal, the alien attempted to re-enter the United States, but was convicted of illegal re-entry and once again deported from the United States.
In another:
A first responder, who was a victim of assault by an alien, requested case information after receiving a state program notice of the alien’s release from state custody, where they were serving time for an assault conviction. The victim feared for their safety because the alien had made several death threats to them. The VOICE Office confirmed that an ICE detainer was placed on the alien that resulted in their transfer into ICE custody. The alien was removed from the United States.
ICE provided individual examples of criminal aliens arrested in the operation to news organizations. In the Washington, D.C., area, the targets included Edwin Nahun Mendoza-Santos, a 38-year-old Honduran man arrested in Alexandria, Va., who was wanted by Stafford County on a warrant for sexual battery of a child under 13; and Manuel De Jesus Rodriguez-Esperanza, 27, who was arrested in Hyattsville, Md., and wanted in his home country of El Salvador for aggravated homicide charges. The latter was ordered deported in 2016, and apparently is one of the approximately one million aliens living in the country ordered removed, but remaining here in defiance of those orders.
Fourteen aliens convicted of homicide were arrested in the operation, and 12 with homicide charges. I requested information on the locations where these aliens were arrested, but have not yet received a response.
This operation was a welcome reminder of the public safety value of immigration enforcement, and that there is a real human cost when ICE is not able to do its job, either because of lack of resources or lack of cooperation from sanctuary jurisdictions. But while it must be tempting to ICE leaders to focus only on the most obvious human interest cases, the front office must be careful not to foster the notion that “criminals with victims” are the only illegal aliens worthy of ICE attention. Read the rest here.
“In fiscal year (FY) 2019, the 287(g) program encountered approximately 775 aliens convicted for assault, 704 convicted for dangerous drugs, 145 convicted for sex offenses/assaults, 173 convicted for obstructing police, 110 convicted for weapon offenses, and 21 convicted for homicide.”
The Hill
August 28, 2020
Tom Homan
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “287(g) program” — which allows ICE to partner with local law enforcement — is under attack across the country. Anti-borders activists continue to protest, demanding that sheriffs end their programs — and calling for them to resign if they don’t. Many Democrats in Congress attack the program and ask federal agencies to review the program for malfeasance. The talking points from the left about the program are simply mistruths — because opponents don’t want anyone, including ICE, to enforce the immigration laws of this country. It is time to review the facts and set the record straight.
The 287(g) program enhances the safety and security of communities by creating partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies to identify and remove criminal aliens who are amenable to removal from the United States. They identify someone who is in the country in violation of federal law and who has been arrested and booked into a jail for a criminal offense. The state or local law enforcement agency arrested them and decided to book them into a jail cell because they were either a danger to the public or a flight risk. ICE had nothing to do with that arrest. Law enforcement made an independent decision to arrest and book the criminal and are simply doing what they have done for decades: enforcing the law and protecting the community.
The 287(g) program was born when the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 added Section 287(g), to the Immigration and Nationality Act. This section of law authorizes the director of ICE to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies that permit designated officers to perform limited immigration law enforcement functions. Agreements under section 287(g) require the local law enforcement officers to receive appropriate training and to function under the supervision of ICE officers.
This is a clear example of law enforcement working with other law enforcement to take criminals off the street, and it works very well.
Tom Homan at the Feb, 2020 Dustin Inman Society immigration forum
The program’s benefits to community safety are clear. In fiscal year (FY) 2019, the 287(g) program encountered approximately 775 aliens convicted for assault, 704 convicted for dangerous drugs, 145 convicted for sex offenses/assaults, 173 convicted for obstructing police, 110 convicted for weapon offenses, and 21 convicted for homicide. Thanks to 287(g) agreements, those public safety threats are no longer walking the streets in those communities — in fact, they are not even in this country anymore…. More here.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) approved a resolution repudiating the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the purported “anti-hate” organization that has become a vehicle for smearing conservatives and critics of radical leftism.
The resolution commits the RNC to officially “Refuting the legitimacy of the Southern Poverty Law Center to identify hate groups.”
The SPLC bills itself as an expert on “hate groups,” maintaining a “hate map” that tracks them around the country. However, the SPLC has repeatedly added mainstream conservative organizations to its list, smearing their reputation and allowing violent far-left criminals to locate and target them.
The RNC resolution notes that the SPLC’s smears “puts conservative groups or voices at risk of attack.”
Conservatives and critics of progressivism that have been smeared by the SPLC include the Family Research Council (which is currently part of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom), the Alliance Defending Freedom, White House speechwriter Stephen Miller, One America News reporter Jack Posobiec, moderate Muslim Maajid Nawaz, and Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
In 2012, far-left radical Floyd Corkins used the SPLC’s “hate map” to locate the offices of the Family Research Council.
He proceeded to the FRC’s offices with a loaded pistol, and opened fire on the office’s security staff before being stopped by an armed guard.
He later told authorities that he planned to kill “as many people as he could” at the FRC, and explained that his crime was politically motivated — he had seen the FRC on the SPLC’s list of “anti-gay” organizations.
Court records submitted by the FBI confirmed that Corkins, a former far-left activist, had indeed checked the SPLC website prior to his attack:
Corkins left and returned the next day, Friday, August 10th, to pick up the pistol. The selection and surveillance of the FRC and other targets. Consistent with his statement to the FBI, a subsequent search of Corkins’s family computer revealed that on the afternoon of Sunday, August 12th, Corkins used the computer to visit the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Website, as well as the Websites for the FRC and the second organization on his handwritten list.
Despite the fact that the SPLC has lost defamation lawsuits and has served as an inspiration for acts of domestic terror, major corporations continue to rely on it to identify “hate groups” and “hate speech.” In 2018, the Daily Caller revealed that Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter all work with the discredited far-left organization.
Lt. Governor’s PAC reportedly kicks in $250,000 for narrow victory
Jason Anavitarte, controversial candidate for the Republican ballot in Georgia’s state senate District 31 primary contest has apparently squeaked past opponent Boyd Austin, a former mayor.
Austin has criticized Anavitarte as representing “outside interests” rather than the district; “…a breakdown of Anavitarte’s contributions from both his April 30th report as well as his latest one bear this out. In the April document 94 percent of Anavitarte’s contributions come from outside the district (with many from lobbyists). In the latest report, outside-the-district donations make up 97 percent of Anavitarte’s total. Only six individuals in the district gave a monetary contribution” according to a July note at Insider Advantage Georgia.
As of August 22, the Secretary of State website still shows results of the August 11TH primary contest as “Unofficial Results – Totals may not include all Absentee or Provisional Ballots” but watchers agree that Anavitarte will likely prevail in the final vote tally.
UPDATE: Final and official results show that Anavitarte won 10,574 to 10,348, a margin of 226 votes.
Anavitarte has drawn considerable attention since it was revealed that from 2006 -2009 he served on the board of the radical GALEO Inc. GALEO is well known as a corporate-funded force against immigration enforcement, ICE holds, 287(g), voter ID and official English. In 2006, the same year Anavitarte joined the board of directors, GALEO teamed with the ACLU, MALDEF, and the ADL in a protest rally against state immigration enforcement.
GALEO Director Jerry Gonzalez has illustrated the group’s mission with antics such as escorting admitted illegal aliens into the Georgia senate Chamber in an effort to stop passage of a 2006 bill, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act (SB529) – aimed at reducing Georgia’s attractiveness as a destination for illegal immigration. Gonzalez has also been criticized for badgering a diminutive female state Rep, Katie Dempsey, for her pro-enforcement position on E-Verify in a Rome, Ga. public forum.
GALEO’s Jerry Gonzalez. Photo: Dustin Inman Society
In early 2016, another former GALEO board member and state court judge, Dax Lopez, was passed over for confirmation after an Obama nomination for a lifetime seat on the federal bench due to his ties to GALEO. This writer was proudly credited with leading the opposition to the Lopez nomination with the research series ‘A Beginner’s Guide to GALEO’ posted on the Dustin Inman Society website in 2015 and 2016.
On its political blog, the Atlanta Journal Constitution has reported that a PAC, ‘Advance Georgia,’ founded by Georgia’s Republican Lt. Governor and president of the senate Geoff Duncan helped Anavitarte’s slim victory with a $250,000 infusion:
“Jason Anavitarte might owe Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan a thank-you note for his apparent narrow GOP runoff victory over Boyd Austin in the contest to replace state Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen. The lieutenant governor’s PAC pumped about $250,000 into Anavitarte’s bid. He’s currently up by about 200 votes – a 1% margin says the liberal AJC Political Insider blog.
Georgia’s Lt. Governor and President of the Senate, Geoff Duncan. Photo: AJC.
“Jason Anavitarte is a former member of the Paulding County School Board and candidate for Senate District 31 in the Georgia Legislature. Most recently, Jason served as Senior Adviser of Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan’s campaign and served on the state finance committee for Governor Brian Kemp during the 2018 election. Jason has been named one of the 50 Most Influential Latinos in Georgia” according to Anavitarte’s campaign website, Campaign website (August 19, 2020).
Anavitarte, who has described himself as an admirer and supporter of Senator Marco Rubio, is a former Doraville City Council member and in 2005 filed to run for the state House as a Democrat. In the recent primary he was endorsed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and originally did not mention illegal immigration on his campaign site as an issue.
That changed after he drew the attention of pro-enforcement conservatives and the media. He now has stated policy positions on immigration that are curiously tailored to a candidate for federal office as opposed to a state senate seat, but has assured voters he is supports legal immigration without offering limits. From JasonAnavitarte.com:
“I support legal immigration and I want to see our current immigration laws upheld. I support the following reforms:
End chain migration. Stop the original immigrant from petitioning to bring their extended families into the USA.
Move to a merit-based skill categories system. This system would put an emphasis on education and skill as a basis for acceptance into the country.
Reform welfare. Deny welfare to anyone with a green card or visa.
NO AMNESTY! Enforcement of deportation will stop people from coming to our borders.
I support the use of e-verify by our businesses. We need to hire people that are legal to work here in Georgia.
No in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.”
Lt Governor Duncan’s PAC was the topic of AJC coverage in October, which included the observation: “the financial haul could also help Duncan exert more influence over a fractious Republican caucus that sporadically sparred during his first legislative session. Duncan said he preferred to view it as a “partnership” to support Republicans.”
According to the most recent estimates from DHS, Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than Arizona and enforcement of laws designed to deny jobs, benefits and services to illegals is routinely ignored by the Republicans who have run the state for *more than a decade nearly two decades.
Anavitarte and his committee and floor votes on illegal immigration-related matters will be the focus of much attention from conservative writers and voters when he becomes a state senator.
A recent news report from the liberal AJC informs us that Zulma Lopez, wife of GALEO’s Dax Lopez has won the primary for State House District 86.
She also allows that former GALEO board member and fundraiser is “no longer a Republican.”
AJC:
Lopez moved to DeKalb County from Puerto Rico in 2007 and has owned her own practice for about six years. Her husband, DeKalb County State Court Judge Dax Lopez, was appointed to the bench in 2010 by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue.
President Barack Obama nominated him for a federal judgeship in 2016, but his nomination was thwarted by U.S. Sen. David Perdue due to the judge’s participation with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials.
At the time, Dax Lopez aligned himself with Republicans, but Zulma Lopez said things have changed.
“Since he’s a judge, he’s nonpartisan,” she said. “I’m happy to live in a house that is not divided, and I can say he is no longer a Republican.”
State Court Judge and former GALEO board member, Dax Lopez circa 2014. Image: Twitter/GALEO
The Dustin Inman Society and this writer were (very proudly) key in educating Senator David Perdue on the relationship between Judge Dax Lopez and GALEO and GALEO’s true agenda and record in large part with the DIS “Beginner’s Guide to GALEO” series of posts.
We wish Ms. Zulma Lopez luck in the General Assembly.
Apparently not all illegal aliens are merely here to look for a better life
In a recent post, I detailed how, in a one-week period, Border Patrol agents saved a number of aliens entering illegally from almost certain death (just a few of the 3,854 search-and-rescue missions they have mounted thus far in FY 2020). A Saturday tweet, from McAllen Station Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings, shows that Border Patrol is saving the lives not only of illicit migrants, but likely many Americans, as well:
For those otherwise untutored in firearms, “AK-47” is the common name for the Model 1947 Kalashnikov assault rifle, described by Encyclopedia Britannica as “possibly the most widely used shoulder weapon in the world.” It is likely the most recognizable, too, appearing (among other places) on the flag of Mozambique. Making up an estimated 10 percent of firearms globally, they are the weapon of choice for many around the world.
Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings @USBPChiefRGV AMMUNITION SEIZURE: Early this morning, McAllen Station agents attempted to arrest 3 subjects that illegally crossed the border. As the men fled back to Mexico, they dropped a backpack containing 7 AK-47 magazines and 740 rounds of 7.62 . Photo: Twitter
Please regard this email as my official request for copies of Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) documents and records under state public records law.
I note that GDOL has an entry on its website (FAQs) informing readers that GDOL uses the Georgia Department of Drivers Services (DDS) to verify the lawful presence required by state law (OCGA 50-36-1) for aliens to qualify for public benefits.
“What is the Applicant Status Affidavit?
Georgia law requires that all applicants for UI benefits who are 18 years of age or older attest they are:
a United States citizen, or
a legal permanent resident, or
a non-citizen legally present in the United States.
The GDOL performs electronic verification of your lawful presence in the United States with the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS). The DDS validates the identity of individuals who indicate they have a Georgia-issued driver’s license or identification card.”
State law (OCGA 50-36-1) passed in 2006 and amended in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 mandates that this verification process for lawful presence be done using the federal SAVE program operated by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
1) Please send me a copy of any authorization or replacement law that would alter the GDOL requirement for SAVE verification and/or change verification source to DDS – including bill number, year passed into law and code section.
2) Please send me copies of any and all GDOL documents, emails, memorandums or policy files that pertain to or mention GDOL requesting or discussing a change in state law regarding GDOL’s direct use of the SAVE program and transferring the lawful presence verification to DDS with a time frame of from 1 January 2013 to 15 August 2020.
3) Please send me a copy of any agreement, MOU/MOA between USCIS and GDOL authorizing GDOL to use the SAVE program including original agreement and all renewals from July 1, 2006 to 15 August, 2020.
4) Please send me a copy of any official agreement between GDOL and DDS pertaining to DDS being the source and authority of verification of lawful presence of non-citizen applicants who apply for public benefits at GDOL – including any email, memorandums or proposals for GDOL to use DDS to verify lawful presence of GDOL applicants for public benefits.
5) Please send me a copy of any document that may illustrate the most recent date of a GDOL query to the SAVE program for verification of lawful presence of an applicant for the public benefit of unemployment insurance or other public benefit administered by GDOL.
6) Please send me copies of any/all internal GDOL email or memorandums or policy discussions that mention ‘Permanent Residence Under Color of Law’ (PRUCOL) including GDOL policy on PRUCOL creating eligibility for lawful presence or unemployment insurance and any correspondence between GDOL and DDS pertaining to PRUCOL.
7) Please send me a copies of any document or electronic form that serves as a transmittal of information from GDOL to DDS of information gathered from GDOL collected applications for unemployment insurance benefits.
8) Please send me copies of any and all internal email, memorandums, policy statement or records or correspondence pertaining to or mentioning federal deferred action on deportation or the Obama-invented DACA program for illegal aliens with a time frame of 1 July, 2012 to 15 August, 2020.
9) Please send me copies of any emails, memorandums or inquiries that ask for information on GDOL administering and or issuing unemployment insurance benefits for illegal aliens who have DACA status or other deferred action on deportation status.
10) Please send me copies of any/all GDOL emails, memorandums or internal correspondence pertaining to or mentioning the March 6, 2019 Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals finding that DACA recipients do not have lawful presence or legal status and are inadmissible and removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). For clarity, I link to that finding here.
11) Please send me any record or document that shows the response code received from the SAVE program to a query from GDOL on immigration status of an applicant with DACA status for unemployment insurance.
12) Please send any document, record, table or index that shows all possible responses and codes used by the SAVE program to answer GDOL queries on immigration status for applicants for public benefits including unemployment insurance benefits.
Please contact me at any time with questions on my request. Please expect this request to be one of several with a goal of gaining a clear and accurate understanding of GDOL policy and operations on administering public benefits/unemployment insurance.
Thank you for a timely reply. I look forward to your itemized estimate of research costs for my request.
