HB444 billed as ‘reform’ to dual enrollment program but does not change lack of screening for illegals

 *UPDATE – 8:50 PM. I  was informed about 5:30 this evening that although it wasn’t on the Rules calendar, while I was writing the below column, House leadership put the HB444 bill on members desks and held a surprise vote today. This was done because we were shining way too much light on the DE program and the bill. Too many House Reps were starting to ask questions. They voted about 12:30-ish I am told. The bill passed (they agreed to senate version).

Never let it be said that Gov Kemp and Speaker Ralston won’t work together.

“They shoved it down our throats. If I had known all this, I never would have voted to agree” one GOP Rep told me this evening. 

__*UPDATED with vote records March 6, 2020 10:48AM. See bottom of column.

Spoiler alert to this post: While it is billed as a way to produce a more educated workforce, the Georgia dual enrollment program allows high school students to attend public universities at zero tuition cost. It has no verification system to keep illegal aliens out of the taxpayer-funded system. And, unless they have the Obama DACA amnesty, which provides a work permit, illegal aliens are not eligible to work anywhere in the United States.

It seems that Gov. Kemp’s office is quite anxious to see his dual enrollment “reform” bill (HB444) passed and is contacting House members to gauge support. A note from Kemp’s Deputy Director of External Affairs, Stuart Wilkinson, to House members (apparently only GOP members) illustrates the urgency and interest. Delivered to members yesterday, this came to us from several pro-enforcement lawmakers:

“Good Afternoon,

We understand that HB 444, the Governor’s dual enrollment bill, will be called for an agree this week. The Governor hopes he can count on your support with a YES vote. Please let us know if there are any issues you want to discuss or are not able to vote YES.

Thanks,

Stuart Wilkinson”

The dual enrollment program (DE) allows high school students to attend public-funded college classes in the taxpayer-funded USG system at zero tuition cost to the student.  Zero cost is a much better benefit than the reduced rate of instate tuition!

With stated goal of reducing costs of DE, HB444 was introduced by a Kemp floor leader and passed last year in the House and then was amended and passed by the state senate earlier this year– handled by a Kemp floor leader.

The liberal AJC did a good job of explaining DE and Kemp’s intent in his reform move here, but they did not include any of the obvious pertinent information on illegal alien students. Neither did they do a story when I asked how many illegal alien high school students are right now receiving a totally free ride in USG classroom seats.

AJC:

“Georgia House Bill 444 would significantly change the state’s popular dual enrollment program that allows high school students to take state-funded college courses.

Supporters of the bill say the program’s costs have skyrocketed in recent years and changes are necessary to make it sustainable. About 52,000 students are currently enrolled in the program.

Critics say the changes will limit education opportunities for many low-income and rural students.

Here are five things to know about the dual enrollment program and proposed legislation, according to information in the bill and its sponsor, state Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta.”

Please read the rest here.

And note that there is no change to the fact that there is no verification to exclude illegals.

As Gov. Kemp’s staffer tells House members in his note yesterday, HB444 will see a call to agree with the senate changes this week, which will send the bill to Gov Kemp’s desk for signing.

Nothing in the original DE program, the Kemp House bill from last year or the senate changes this year includes any requirement that illegal aliens be screened out of the free (taxpayer-funded) college courses.

Not so after high school graduation. See the USG verification system to insure illegal aliens do not receive reduced tuition rates for those applicants here.

Gov. Kemp’s office phone number is 404-656-1776. He is knowingly allowing illegal aliens in high school to obtain a no-cost college education – and Georgia citizens are being billed.

We hope you ask your own Rep how they are going to vote on HB 444 – and how they voted on it last year.

We will post all voting records next week.

Vote records as promised. Pasted from the General Assembly website.

 

Mar/03/2020 – House Vote #521Yea(103) Nay(67) NV(1)

Excu (excused) (9)

 

 

 

 

Pitching a story and pleading for help

 #BigTruckTrick

Media blackout in Georgia

 

18 Feb 2020

 After campaigning on a promise to “track and deport” criminal aliens and keeping his ‘Big Truck’ for “rounding up criminal illegals” and a solid pledge on ending sanctuary jurisdictions while citing Kate Steinle and other victims, Georgia’s establishment Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has been totally mute on any part of illegal immigration since Election Day, 2018.

This, despite a growing unease by the pro-enforcement, independent voters. Here is my Brian Kemp file that includes letters to the editor and other information. The liberal media here in Georgia, including the AP and AJC have watched this happen without so much as a single note of Kemp’s betrayal on illegal immigration in a state that is home to more illegal aliens than green card holders — and more than Arizona (DHS).

Also despite the known rapes and murders committed by illegal aliens in Metro Atlanta, Kemp is still silent. He does not speak up to support the sheriffs who are fighting the corporate-funded anti-enforcement leftists in the full scale assault on 287(g)/. “Chinga La Migra!”

Add to that the fact that state law requires GA Dept. of Public Safety to have a 287(g) agreement and to train ten new officers each year in that program. Under Kemp, DPS is not 287(g) authorized.

While cutting the budget by $200 mil this year, he will not consider a $100 million annual new revenue stream because it effects black market labor in our Big Ag industry.

Now, POTUS announces his intent to send Border Patrol Agents to Atlanta to help with the sanctuary city crisis while Kemp remains silent. *Stats on criminal aliens in our prison system. POTUS endorsed Kemp – largely due to his announced “tough on criminal illegals” claim. It is obvious that President Trump is doing the job Gov Kemp will not do.

Because Republican-ruled Georgia is about where California was around the late 1990’s on this and the political corruption involved, we have taken to calling our once conservative state “Georgiafornia.”

BTW”: Georgia’s governor has a “do not call me policy.” We are pleading with a national news outlet to expose this dangerous and defiant rot. And Kemp is pushing legislation through that will “reform” the dual enrollment program in our schools in an effort to educate more workers – but he refuses to insert any verification system to filter out illegal aliens who are obviously not eligible to work.

We held an event here Feb 8 that featured former Acting ICE Director Tom Homan as keynote speaker and when he learned of the above and verified it with his active Georgia-resident ICE Agent friends, he took some verbal swings at Kemp on Fox and Friends and at our event. Please see photo here.

Again, despite all of this, the GA media is silent. Most Georgians are unaware of any of this.

We are pleading for help from the outside world. I have been blacklisted by the media here since the amnesty fight of 2013 and a front page profile in NY Times and a resulting interview/trial on Univision with Jorge Ramos. Local agenda-reporters went bats over that one.

D.A. King

@DAKDIS

Marietta, GA

ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com

 

 

 Coca-Cola and Georgia Power regular GALEO supporters

Longtime enemy of immigration enforcement, Jerry Gonzalez, was quoted by Capitol-Beat News Service remarking on public safety legislation introduced yesterday by state Rep Phillip Singleton (R- Sharpsburg). Singleton’s bill is aimed at “sanctuary” policies for illegal aliens by local governments in Georgia.

From the report:

“Local Latino advocates panned the bill Wednesday, calling it a threat Georgia’s huge immigrant workforce that drives the state’s poultry, carpet and hospitality industries.

Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the nonprofit Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO), said the measure would make Georgia less safe. “Georgia does not need this legislation, and it is simply aimed as a distraction and fear mongering during an election year,” Gonzalez said.

The entire Capitol-Beat story is available here.

Gonzalez is a former MALDEF lobbyist and Democrat fundraiser known to verbally attack female legislators who take a pro-enforcement position on immigration.

MALDEF was co-founded by anti-borders activist Mario Guerra Obledo who was best known for his 1998, on-air quote concerning California’s political future. “California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave. They ought to go back to Europe,” said Mario Guerra Obledo, co-founder of MALDEF, on the Tom Likus radio show.

GALEO counts Georgia Power, Coca-Cola and Telemundo as financial supporters.

IPG will keep readers informed on Rep Singleton’s immigration enforcement bill.

Read the initial version of HB915 here.

 

Note: The below is a repost from 2020. We have been asking all concerned since then about illegal aliens and the Dual Enrollment program . We find no provision in the law that excludes  the illegals from the taxpayer-funded benefit. We take the silence as our answer.

HB 444 needs work 

*Updated: 2:12 PM Feb. 3, 2020

• We find it necessary to remind all concerned that illegal aliens are not generally eligible to work in the U.S.

More attention should be paid to Georgia’s “dual enrollment” program, related legislation and the very real possibility that illegal aliens in high school are taking seats in the university system while avoiding the verification process for “lawful presence” through which the rest of the college applicants are supposed to be screened.

If we understand it correctly, high school students are taking state-funded college seats – with no cost to the student.

The SAVE program is the default federal tool in state law (OCGA 50-36-1) used to verify eligibility of foreign nationals for a host of Public Benefits. Post-secondary education is exempted from the verification mandate but USG implemented policy to verify “lawful presence” and the use of the SAVE program in 2010.

Covering legislation dealing with proposed changes to the system, in a recent “What to know about Georgia’s dual enrollment bill” the AJC reports that “supporters of the bill say the program’s costs have skyrocketed in recent years and changes are necessary to make it sustainable. About 52,000 students are currently enrolled in the program.”

Line 52 of the pending HB 444 defines an “eligible student” for dual enrollment but we don’t see any language that would exclude illegal aliens or that requires any verification process. *UPDATE: We don’t see any on the paper dual enrollment funding application either.

Before final action is taken on the bill, more questions should be asked.

• Added Dec. 18, 2023: Related reading:  Kemp contacts House members on Dual Enrollment vote 

Where in the law and the legislation does the dual enrollment system exclude illegal aliens from the very costly program? Where is language that requires USG to use their in-place verification system for dual enrollment students?

Maybe it is already policy, but putting a verification requirement into dual enrollment law should be considered the belt to go with any USG policy suspenders. Maybe the AJC will do an “everything you need to know” expansion piece on this.

If these students are indeed “undocumented” how can USG verify “lawful presence”?

USG provides answers on how not to verify “lawful presence”

USG (correctly) does not accept the Department of Driver’s Services ‘LIMITED TERM’ driver’s license as verification of lawful presence for purposes of admission and/or determining eligibility for instate tuition.

For the unaware, because the feds have issued work permits (EADs) and SSNs to them, Georgia issues the exact same ID and driving credentials to illegal aliens with deferred action on deportation (and several other “you can stay for awhile” categories of illegal aliens) that is issued to real immigrants (green card holders) and temporary visas holders who did obey federal immigration law. Repeat: the identical credential.

Because they are REAL ID Act compliant, these credentials are used to board airliners, purchase explosives and as admittance to federal buildings.

Several other states including Michigan, South Carolina and even California have systems in place that create a separate non-REAL ID Act compliant credential. The Republican-ruled Georgia state senate passed legislation in 2016 that mandated a new and additional, separate design. That bill never saw a hearing in the Republican House.

It should be noted that the REAL ID Act – Section 202, (2)(B) – dictates that deferred action on deportation is “evidence of legal status” – for purposes of driver’s licenses/ID issuance only. The REAL ID Act does not require states to issue credentials to anyone.

The below from page 17 of the University System of Georgia Manual for Determining Tuition Classification And Awarding Out-of-State Tuition Waivers.

“SYSTEMATIC ALIEN VERIFICATION FOR ENTITLEMENTS (SAVE) PROGRAM

In some cases, it will not be possible to verify the lawful presence of a non-citizen student using the typical options provided on the USG Verification of Lawful Presence Chart, such as verifying using a U.S. birth certificate, Georgia driver’s license (not limited term), U.S. citizenship paperwork, or based on the student’s confirmed eligibility for federal student aid. In those cases, it may be necessary to use a program provided by the Department of Homeland Security called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, or SAVE…” Bold emphasis mine.

USG is admitting that the ‘LIMITED TERM’ driver’s licenses issued by DDS are not reliable indicator of who is and who isn’t an illegal alien.

It’s time to reform the dual enrollment program and the system for issuing driving and ID credentials in Georgia.

**PUBLIC SERVICE INFO: CONTACT YOUR GEORGIA STATE REP HERE.

D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 27, 2020 from the WASHINGTON TIMES. Steven Dinan reporting

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Trump administration can move ahead with its “public charge” regulation that could block immigrants who wind up on the public dole from earning a pathway to citizenship.

It marks another significant victory for President Trump, giving him a tentative go-ahead on one of his key policies aimed at putting Americans’ needs first in the immigration system.

The 5-4 decision stays a lower court injunction, allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to move ahead with examining would-be immigrants’ history of access to public programs such as food stamps, many forms of Medicaid, public housing assistance, welfare cash payments and Supplemental Security Income benefits. Read the rest here.