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“Martinez said he paid 30,000 Guatemalan quetzals, about $2,500, to a “coyote” smuggling guide. It was a cheap rate, but it meant that he and his son traveled through Mexico in trucks, like cargo.

Across rural Guatemala, Martinez said, word has spread that those who travel with a child can expect to be released from U.S. custody. Smugglers were offering two-for-one pricing, knowing they just needed to deliver clients to the border — not across it — for an easy surrender to U.S. agents.”

Breitbart, today:

Washington Post: Border Rush May Hit 100,000 Migrants in March

“The number of migrants taken into custody last year jumped 39 percent from February to March, and a similar increase this month would push levels to 100,000 detentions or more,” the Washington Post reported March 4. The paper continued:

U.S. court restrictions on the government’s ability to keep children in immigration jails — and the sheer volume of people arriving — have left Homeland Security agencies [on the border] defaulting increasingly to the overflow model Trump deplores as “catch-and-release.” Read the rest here.

“The new governor has not taken action on illegal immigration despite his campaign promises, said King. “This would be an ideal time for Governor [Brian] Kemp to speak up in favor of transparency about the cost of illegal immigration…” 

Breitbart News has taken notice of the fact that the Republican Rules Committee has so far not allowed HB202 to see a vote in the full House.

The below report was posted this yesterday. *The Dustin Inman Society has put out an action alert with contact info for the Republican Chairman of the Gold Dome committee where the bill is being held captive. HERE.

Breitbart News

Georgia Establishment Legislators Try to Hide Migrant Crime from Voters

By Neil Munro

March 1, 2019

Republican and Democratic legislators in Georgia are trying to block good-government legislation that would help Georgia voters learn the number of criminal illegal aliens in their state.

The draft legislation would require state officials to provide quarterly reports on the number of deportable illegal migrants and of non-citizens who are held in detention. But it must pass the Georgia House’s rules committee and the House floor before midnight March 7.

The bill, HB 202, was promoted in a February 28 hearing by GOP state Rep. Jesse Petrea. But the GOP chairman of the rules committee quickly signaled his opposition to the legislation. “Why do we need this?” chairman Jay Powell challenged Petrea.

In response, Petrea criticized “the inability by both parties in Congress to do anything to deal with this [illegal migration] problem,” adding:

What we can do is make the people we represent recognize the degree to which the issue impacts their lives daily … There are 1,505 violent and sex offenders in Georgia correctional facilities [on the list] who murdered, raped, killed, kidnapped, child-molested Georgia citizens … So the people can look at that list and have complete transparency and they can say “That is a big deal,” or they may say “That is not a big deal.” But right now, that data is not available to them … All I want is for that data to be transparent and posted on the web site. And the people can make up their own minds.

“1,505 inmates is a lot of money on our budget and it is a lot of human tragedy,” Petrea added.

Three Democrats joined in opposition to the bill.

Rep. Robert Trammell suggested the release of the statistics would “inflame public opinion against a group based on their citizenship or non-citizenship status.”  READ THE REST HERE.

Yellow Hammer News

February 28, 2019

Congressman Mo Brooks (AL-5) is helping lead the charge on “crucial America First legislation” to curb illegal immigration.

The legislation would permanently reauthorize the E-Verify program and make its use mandatory.

“American jobs entice illegal aliens to break our laws and come to America,” Brooks said in a statement. “Mandatory e-verify coupled with harsh penalties cuts off illegal aliens from American jobs. The result? Higher pay and more jobs for Americans.”

He concluded, “An added bonus is that illegal aliens who can’t get jobs will self-deport at no cost to taxpayers. That is a great deal for all Americans! I look forward to working with Senator Grassley to advance this crucial America First legislation.” Read more here.

Insider Advantage Georgia

House Rules Committee holding incarceration cost transparency bill prisoner

D.A. King

For many watchers it has long been assumed that the Republicans who run the Gold Dome would rather taxpayers not have any official hard data on any part of the cost of illegal immigration. Now, with crossover day looming, the House Rules Committee with South Georgia Rep. Jay Powell (R-Camilla) as chairman seems poised to prove that assumption.

In a red-ish state that is home to more illegal aliens than green card holders, we may never be allowed to know the cost of state incarceration of the illegal aliens.

HB 202 from Rep Jesse Petrea (R- Savannah) is a simple and long-overdue one-pager that would require the Georgia Department of Corrections to publish a public, quarterly report on the number of non-citizens in the prison system, the number of that group who already are subjects of ICE detainers, the home nations and crimes committed along with the percentage of the entire prison population these aliens represent.

All concerned should note that ICE detainers could only be issued if federal authorities have already had contact with illegal aliens who are serving state time. The current version of the bill is a step back from original language that would have required immigration status, if known, of all aliens in the system. The data the now weakened legislation produced would not be an indicator of the entire cost of incarcerating all illegal aliens in the state. But it is apparently still too much information for the House Rules Committee.

A letter of endorsement to Rep Petrea from Mr. Robert Trent, a now retired Senior ICE enforcement agent in Brunswick, notes that because the DOC is using the federal 287 (g) program in addition to the Secure Communities system to collect fingerprints from prisoners, they have more than enough tools to gather information on the immigration status for allprisoners. These databases can also alert ICE to legal immigrants who may be deportable.

This writer testified in support of the bill in the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee earlier this week and watched with pleasant surprise to see that there were more pro-enforcement Americans – including several immigrants – signed up to speak in favor of Petrea’s legislation than there were corporate-funded leftists opposed to the bill… Read the rest here.

ICE issued the following media release on February 26, 2019

More news from ICE here.

PHILADELPHIA — On Tuesday, Feb. 26, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced the sentencing of a Honduran man, currently serving a sentence of eight to 20 years in state prison for the raping a child, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers.

Juan Ramon-Vasquez, 51, was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment, to be served consecutive to his state sentence, for his federal crime of illegal reentry to the United States after deportation. In May 2009, Ramon-Vasquez was deported from the United States to Honduras. In March 2014, he was encountered by ERO officers in the custody of the Philadelphia Department of Prisons.

The City of Philadelphia chose not to comply with a detainer lodged by ICE for Ramon-Vasquez, who was instead released from custody by the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. After his release, Ramon-Vasquez proceeded to repeatedly rape a young child. The defendant is currently serving a sentence of eight to 20 years in state prison for the rapes.

“The facts of this case illustrate all too well the direct threat to public safety caused by the City of Philadelphia’s sanctuary city policies,” said U.S. Attorney William McSwain. “After the City let this criminal loose on the streets of Philadelphia, Ramon-Vasquez repeatedly raped his girlfriend’s daughter over an 18-month period. If the ICE detainer had been honored by local law enforcement, this crime never would have happened, and the victim – an innocent child – would have been spared horrendous physical and mental trauma. Criminals like Ramon-Vasquez take note: my Office will do everything in its power to find you, to protect our community, and to seek justice for your victims. Unlike the Philadelphia government, we are not on your side.”

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Josh Davison.

NumbersUSA

February 15, 2019

Spending bill amnesty: Here are the Republicans who voted to gut interior enforcement…

The House and Senate passed H.J.Res. 31 on Thursday to fund roughly 25% of the federal government, including the Department of Homeland Security, through Sept. 30. In addition to allowing DHS to increase the number of low-skilled guest workers through the H-2B visa program, the bill also reduces the number of detention beds used by ICE to detain criminal aliens and recent illegal border crossers and protects sponsors of child smuggling from deportation.

The bill passed by an 83-to-16 margin in the Senate with Republicans and Democrats in equal support of the bill. The official roll call can be found here.

Eleven Republicans voted against the legislation, including Sens. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Joshua Hawley of Missouri.

Here are the SENATE REPUBLICANS who voted to weaken interior enforcement: Read the entire article here.

Conservative Review        

*UPDATE: SEE SENATE VOTES HERE

**UPDATE: HOUSE ROLL CALL VOTE HERE.

February 14, 2019

Daniel Horowitz

5 insane provisions in the amnesty omnibus bill

“Before getting into the details of this crazy omnibus bill, it’s important to recognize that we don’t understand all the details. The worst provisions are written in vague language ensconced in an 1,169-page bill, which has already been posted online in two different versions (the first was 10 pages shorter). That is exactly why Democrats are salivating to vote on this within a few hours of passage, which is exactly why Trump has a responsibility to oppose it immediately and demand at least a short-term clean continuing resolution so that he can digest the consequences of this bill. If he cannot make that simple demand, which would not even trigger a phony shutdown, then his presidency is worthless.

The process is indefensible: It is immoral, from any ideological perspective, to vote on an 1,169-page omnibus with new provisions on immigration amid a border crisis. We are already four and a half months into this fiscal year and have been operating on stopgap bills. There is no rush to vote on something like this, which will fund seven departments for the remainder of the year, within a few hours when we should have another stopgap bill while we debate, and even discover, the contents of this long-term bill that makes important statutory changes. The only reason one would pursue this process is to hide things from the American people.

Here are the immediate issues to flag:

1) Less of a wall than even what Democrats already agreed to: Trump originally demanded $25 billion for the wall. Then he negotiated himself down to $5.6 billion. Democrats balked and only agreed to $1.6 billion. This bill calls it a day at $1.375 billion, enough to construct 55 miles. But it’s worse than that. This bill limits the president’s ability to construct “barriers” to just the Rio Grande Valley sector and only bollard fencing, not concrete walls of any kind. There’s no ability to adapt. Furthermore, section 231 prohibits construction even within the RGV in five locations that are either federal or state lands. Remember, the challenge with building a wall in Texas is that, unlike in other states, the feds need to navigate issues with private lands. The first place you’d construct fencing is on public lands, which are now prohibited. The national parks along the border have gotten so bad that park rangers are scared to travel alone in them.

2) Liberal local officials have veto power over wall: Actually, on second thought, it’s likely that not a single mile of fence will be built. Section 232(a) of this bill states that “prior to use of any funds made available by this Act for the construction of physical barriers” the Department of Homeland Security “shall confer and seek to reach mutual agreement regarding the design and alignment of physical barriers within that city.” With whom must the feds consult? “The local elected officials.” Now you can understand the brilliance of limiting the wall to the Rio Grande Valley. These are the most liberal counties on the border (thanks to demographics of open borders itself!), and there is practically no local official who supports the wall in these counties.

What are the consequences? This bill stipulates that “Such consultations shall continue until September 30, 2019 (or until agreement is reached, if earlier) and may be extended beyond that date by agreement of the parties, and no funds made available in this Act shall be used for such construction while consultations are continuing.” Thus, all the Beto O’Rourke type of politicians in that region have de facto veto power. There’s a reason why they didn’t authorize fencing in conservative counties like Cochise and Yuma in Arizona.

3) This bill contains a blatant amnesty for the worst cartel smugglers: Section 224(a) prohibits the deportation of anyone who is sponsoring an “unaccompanied” minor illegal alien – or who says they might sponsor a UAC, or lives in a household with a UAC, or a household that potentially might sponsor a UAC. It’s truly difficult to understate the betrayal behind this provision. One of the driving factors of the invasion is the misinterpretation of the UAC law. Under current law, Central American teenagers are only treated as refugees if they are A) a victim of “A severe form of trafficking” and B) have no relatives in the country. Yet almost all of them are self-trafficked by these very illegal relatives who are indeed present in the country. Rather than clamping down on this fleecing of the American people, the bill gives amnesty to the very people paying the cartels to invade us!

“We can call this the MS-13 Household Protection Act of 2019,” said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies. “We know that 80 percent of the UAC sponsors are in the country illegally. The number of people this would protect would reach into the hundreds of thousands, if all of the household or potential household members are counted. ICE has estimated that 30-40 percent of the MS-13 members it has arrested in the last two years arrived as UACs. There is no reason to shield any of these individuals from deportation. After all, if the minor is living with family, they should no longer be considered unaccompanied anyway. If there are illegal aliens here who do not yet have a child here to serve as a deportation shield, this certainly is an incentive for them to make the arrangements to bring one.” More here!

Image: GDOT

by D.A. King | Jan 30, 2019 | The Forum | 0 comments

Re; “Will the General Assembly reverse the 2018 GDOT carve-out on E-Verify for contractor bids?”

GDOT has easily wrangled an exception in the E-Verify verification – contractor bidding law with an irritated and stern “trust us.”

With her response, a writer from GDOT, Meg Pirkle, has publicly accused me of offering up “omissions and factual inaccuracies” in my recent IAG column  about a law and E-Verify usage verification for public contractors system I have been working with since its creation in 2006.

I described a successful move by the Georgia Department of Transportation to put special rules for their contractor bidding process into law via Section 3 of 2018’s SB455. Admittedly, this is an “in the weeds” issue that very few people – including most legislators – are familiar with. I hope that will change. It is important to note however, that if they are following the law, all other public employers now have a different system for this process than GDOT.

State law, OCGA 13-10-91, which, as I wrote, was put into place by then Senator Chip Rogers’ Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act of 2006, governs the public employers/contractor bidding process that involves E-Verify.

This Act originally created state law that read: “No public employer shall enter into a contract for the physical performance of services within this state unless the contractor registers and participates in the federal work authorization program to verify information of all new employees.”

Because of loop holes, that part of the law was adjusted in 2009 (See line 33) with the addition of: “Before a bid for any such service is considered by a public employer, the bid shall include a signed, notarized affidavit from the contractor attesting to…” All emphasis mine.

There is a great difference in the two schedules for deadlines for potential contractors to verify use of E-Verify.

Pirkle’s interpretation of my piece is that I question the ethics of the 2018 GDOT legislation that excludes GDOT from the process of contractors submitting proof of E-Verify authority before consideration of their bids. On this, Pirkle has shown a firm grasp of my intent.

 “Omission”

I confess: Pirkle’s accusation that I omitted the response from GDOT’s spokesperson, Natalie Dale, is true. I didn’t take up space in the write-up to feature Dale’s multiple responses because she did not answer most of my questions. Instead, I reserved much of my limited column space to include several news-story examples of GDOT’s past documented violations of exactly the same law on exactly the same bidding process issue. I did however post our entire email thread here.

“Factual inaccuracies”

Pirkle wites that “King suggested that the (E-Verify) affidavit could be submitted electronically; however, the Georgia Department of Transportation’s legal office maintains a strict interpretation of Georgia Code requiring the affidavit to bear the actual inked signature for notarization.”

What I wrote was “…the existing law is clear that bids and E-Verify affidavits may be submitted electronically. If a contract bidder is indeed an E-Verify user, he can easily send that documentation along with his bid from his computer.”

I even linked to the text of the law. That doesn’t seem to have been enough, so I will post the exact language: “(11) Documents required by this Code section may be submitted electronically, provided the submission complies with Chapter 12 of Title 10.” It’s down near the bottom of the page.

Memo to Meg Pirkle and GDOT: I didn’t “suggest” the affidavit can legally be sent electronically, I stated it as the fact that it is. There is a qualifier that reads “provided the submission complies with Chapter 12 of Title 10.” What does the relevant part of that law say? Here’s what.

Regardless of very clear state law, we are now told that GDOT lawyers have quietly “interpreted” that E-Verify affidavits must be sent in via hard copy. And that this is the impetus for SB445 and the carve out for GDOT. How handy.

Why didn’t GDOT ask that the law be changed to accommodate their concerns with sending notarized documents electronically in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 or 2013?

Legislators and Legislative Counsel in the 2009 committee process fully vetted the carefully crafted language on sending electronic versions of all documents when the security on the contractor bidding process was tightened. I was there and participated in that process. Where was GDOT?

Indeed, it should be noted that GDOT lawyers also did not bring forth concerns when the same code was in committee in 2010, 2011, 2012 or 2013.

 Legislators should be very curious to hear what objections the apparently shy lawyers at GDOT have with all this. And they should be interested in what other departments have quietly adopted their own contractor bidding system outside law passed by the General Assembly.

Pirkle should apologize

Pirkle on “inaccuracies” again: “King also insinuates that legislators and/or GDOT had secretly inserted questionable affidavit language into a bill on the last day of the session. This is also inaccurate.”

Nice try. I wrote that “in the haste and bedlam of 2018’s Sine Die, Senate Bill 445 sailed through both the House and Senate.” Perhaps Pirkle doesn’t fully understand the workings of the legislature.  SB445 passed on the last day of the 2018 session with very few “Nay” votes in either chamber. Pirkle should point out the supposed “insinuation” or any mention of any amendment anywhere in my column, or have the integrity to apologize and publicly correct her accusation. “Inaccuracies” indeed.

For readers who are not familiar with endless smoke-and-mirror ways of the Gold Dome Swamp, it may be confusing to read GDOT’s reply to my column on the change they have created in the bidding process they use when Pirkle begins her defense of GDOT’s 2018 SB445 with “The bill included the extension of a deadline to submit a required affidavit as one provision in that bill.” Then ends it with the assurance that “the bidding system did not change.”

Finally, on the lack of lawmaker’s objections to GDOT changing the bidding process rules back to where they were before the added security language was added in 2009, Pirkle notes that “not once in this process did a single lawmaker raise any concerns with the affidavit language.” This is what can easily be labeled “sadly amusing.” Finding any legislator in the Capitol – who, even now – can offer a lucid explanation of the E-Verify statutes would be an interesting, if all but futile mission. When GDOT says they want legislation passed, the response from far too many legislators in leadership is “how high?”

I have spoken to many now-concerned and surprised lawmakers who have taken a second look at the changes in the contractor bidding system created by their votes on SB445. All of them express surprise and regret – and all of them point to the fact that such things happen when rushed Day 40 votes are taken without time for proper debate or education.

Executive version

 GDOT has easily wrangled an exception in the E-Verify verification – contractor bidding law with an irritated and stern “trust us.”