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Being that she has pushed similar goop for a large part of the year so far, we’ll be quite interested to hear what Kemp Republican and radio show host Martha Zoller has to say about the amnesty the Democrats perpetrated  yesterday.  Having been extremely busy with pro-enforcement matters under the Gold Dome, I haven’t tuned in to Zoller in quite a while. The guess from here is that she slowed down her relentless push for amnesty when Nikki Haley dropped out of the GOP race for president. But maybe not.

For those readers who haven’t heard Martha Zoller’s guidelines for which illegal aliens would be eligible for legalization you can see here and here and here and here for a sample (don’t miss the repeated premise that Gov. Brain Kemp betrayed his promise to go after illegal immigration in Georgia because the number of illegal aliens increased so much after he was elected). The basics of the Martha Zoller amnesty plan include illegal aliens with ITINs, illegal alien DACA recipients, and illegal alien”families” that have been able to dodge nearly non-existent efforts at deportation for twenty-ish years (it varies) should be legalized.

Martha refers to Americans who fight any amnesty as “hard liners.” We note that those “hardliners” include a large majority of Americans, including Hispanic Americans. Most people do not agree with Martha Zoller on her push for amnesty.

• Related reading: Illegal immigration’s biggest losers? America’s poor.

We hope to be able to listen in and see what Martha says about the Biden amnesty – here’s a fact sheet on that event from the Immigration Accountability Project in Washington D.C.

Like the proposed Martha Zoller amnesty, Biden’s executive action will likely add a lot of voters to the Democrat’s rolls in the near future.

* A fun story from Fox News: CBS host shocked by poll showing 62% of registered voters support deporting all illegal immigrants (here).

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Incorporated Sept. 5, 2013 by Republican Georgia state Senators Steve Gooch, David Shafer and Ronnie Chance. Current officers are Senators John Kennedy Flanders,  Larry Walker and Steve Gooch.

2013 Annual Registration  Steve Gooch CEO, COO and Secretary.

2014 Annual Registration – Steve Gooch CEO, COO and Secretary.

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2024 Annual registration John Kennedy Flanders CFO, Lawrence Cohen Walker III CEO, Stephen Wade Gooch Secretary.

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“State legislators in Georgia are not accustomed to fielding questions on illegal immigration.”

First-term Republican state Senator Mike Hodges (R – Brunswick) sat for an interview with “the most listened to man in South Georgia” radio host Scott Ryfun last week. I found the senator’s remarks on illegal immigration in Georgia and what he hears from legislative colleagues on the topic quite interesting – but different than my own experience.

The 2024 General Assembly was this writer’s nineteenth year fighting the pro-enforcement immigration battle under the Gold Dome. I can report that except for a very few courageous lawmakers, illegal immigration is not “an issue” for most of them. That goes double in the state Senate. I blame Republican voters.

For readers who missed the Ryfun interview, I paste a partial transcript of the segment in which Sen. Hodges was asked about illegal immigration.

Scott Ryfun to Sen. Hodges:

“…as far as your term in office so far, were you surprised at how big an issue in the last year illegal immigration has become?

Sen Mike Hodges

Yes and no. … I’m, I mean, well, I’ve always, I mean, you know, we’ve only, we’ve got finite resources in the State of Georgia, we got finite resources in the country and, you know, we’ve gotta take care of our folks. Um, what I’ve been surprised at is the vehemence and the, the vehemence of some folks and the, um, the charges, if you will, of, bad behavior by a lotta people in the business community, you know, I’m there every day. Uh, I’m in the legislature every day. I’m part of discussions of bills and I never hear anybody say, “Hey, let’s do this this way and we can get free labor.” I mean, I don’t, I don’t hear that. I hear more people saying, “You know” we need to do something. We need to do something to make illegal aliens less desirable, … to make Georgia less desirable for illegal aliens.”

I hear a lot more of that than I do, the other side of the argument. So, I think there’s, I think that there is, an effort, you know, to try to, um, to try to deal with that. I know that, that it is a single-issue for a number of people.” (End of my outtake).

Thank you, Scott Ryfun.

State legislators in Georgia are not accustomed to fielding questions on illegal immigration. I blame Republican voters.

Here I need to write that illegal employment is the main driver of illegal immigration. And that I have personally watched lobbyists for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce first try to stop and then water down state legislation to create a requirement that private employers use the federal no-cost E-Verify system to deter illegal employment. They were partially successful.

• Bonus reading: The Georgia Chamber of Commerce and DEI

And that I have personally seen an arrogant lobbyist working for and at the direction of the Georgia agriculture industry explain to a House committee that the H2A vias was bad for business. Agriculture is the only industry that has its own visa – the H2A visa. With it growers can legally bring in an unlimited number of temporary foreign farm workers.  But the program does require that the employer provide the visa holder with housing, transportation, meals, and certain designated wages.

Use of legal H2A labor is too costly, the Big Ag mouthpiece explained. It’s cheaper to use black market labor.  “The H2A visa is like a Cadillac – and not everyone can afford a Cadillac…” he said. Ask me for a link to the committee video.

With Sen. Hodges description of what he hears in the legislature in mind, here are just two of the anti-enforcement bills passed in the GOP-run Georgia state Senate in the 2023-2024 General Assembly:

SB 112  -(“The Workforce EXCELeration Act”) – Would provide taxpayer-funded Adult Education for Georgia residents aged twenty-one and over to the state technical college system for classes that result in a high school diploma. The bill contained language that allowed the TCSG and the State Board of Education to “waive or provide variances to state laws, rules, regulations, policies, and procedures…” that may be necessary to meet the measure’s goals. Ditto for federal laws that get in the way.

There was no exclusion for illegal aliens.

Only one state senator (Sen. Colton Moore) voted “no.” The bill was overhauled and repaired in the House.

SB 354 – Removes the requirement for occupational licensing for some low-skilled workers in Georgia – and along with it the verification of lawful presence immigration check.

It passed the state Senate in January with zero “no” GOP votes – and only two in the House In March. Gov. Kemp should veto this legislation.

I blame Republican voters.

• A version of this column was published in the April 22, 2024 edition of the Glynn Co. (GA) newspaper, The Islander.

“This writer will rely on more sophisticated minds to enlighten us on how taxpayer dollars used to train illegal aliens who are ineligible for employment and foreigners here temporarily somehow represents “a historic investment” in Georgia’s future workforce.”

What would you call a taxpayer-funded state program that covers the costs to “upskill” employees for employers who can depend on the Technical College System of Georgia for training – and can then pay the employer $50,000 upon completion of his employee’s instruction?

What would you call this initiative if there were no process in place to exclude either illegal alien employees or illegal alien employers from benefitting?

Governor Kemp and the GOP-ruled state legislature call it the ‘Registered Apprenticeship Program.’ It’s yet another “workforce development” scheme.

• Related reading: “Despite state and federal laws, illegal aliens run businesses in Georgia and they hire illegal alien employees.”

“A Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) is a robust & comprehensive training model that helps employers transform and develop entry-level employees into high-skilled talent” explains the TCSG website.

The RAP is part of and funded by the High Demand Career Initiative (HDCI) program.

The HDCI is best explained by Gov. Brain Kemp: “During the 2022 legislative session, Governor Kemp and lawmakers partnered to pass SB 379, representing a historic investment in apprenticeships in Georgia through the HDCI Program. The HDCI Program awards up to $50,000 in funding to Georgia businesses to upskill workers through registered apprenticeships and increase skilled talent within Georgia’s high-demand industries,” went a November 2022, Kemp office media release.

RAP includes “the undocumented”

And then there’s this: “Undocumented immigrants can participate in the Registered Apprenticeship Program” says  Kimberly Burgess, Apprenticeship Coordinator at TCSG’s Coastal Pines Technical College in a response to our inquiry.

And H1B workers are participating in the RAP/HDCI program according to Danny Mitchell, HDCI program manager in TCSG’s Office of Workforce Development. For the uninitiated, “the H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant work visa that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers with specialized skills to work in the United States for a specific period of time” (boundless.com).

This writer will rely on more sophisticated minds to enlighten us on how taxpayer dollars used to train illegal aliens who are ineligible for employment and foreigners here temporarily somehow represents “a historic investment” in Georgia’s future workforce.

• We are grateful to the staff at the Technical College System of Georgia for the professional and timely responses to our many open records requests and questions on this matter. No agency has been quicker to reply or easier to work with in our twenty years of fighting illegal immigration.

In 2022, when no exclusion for black market labor or illegal alien employers could be found in the then-pending SB 379, I emailed my concerns to lead sponsor Sen. Brian Strickland and various key legislators including Rep. Chuck Martin, the House sponsor. Martin is Chairman of the House Higher Education Committee where the measure was heard after it breezed through the Senate.

Strickland did not reply. After the measure passed out of his committee, Martin sent me an email: “taking a look at all aspects prior to Rules.” (Full House vote record here).

As prep for this column and now nearly two years later, I asked Strickland and Martin again to cite language in SB 379 or a verification system in the RAP that would address excluding illegal aliens as participants. In his reply Martin suggested that illegal aliens would somehow be disqualified because state apprentices must have registered with the U.S. Dept. of Labor Office of Apprenticeship. But the U.S. DOL Apprenticeship Program registration/agreement application does not even require a Social Security Number.

He also cited a January 2023 USDOL bulletin (SB 379 passed in March 2022) that clarifies the apprenticeship program is open to non-U.S. citizens and that RAP sponsors should ensure that “all individuals who are eligible to work in the U.S. are afforded an opportunity to participate and complete a RAP.” Martin said he relied on statements from Sen. Strickland.

Illegal aliens ‘not specifically addressed’ in bill 

In his response, Strickland was less inventive. “Illegal immigration was not specifically addressed in this bill but if any legislator believes that illegal aliens are taking the funds set forth in this program, then I am sure we will see a bill to address this” he wrote.

I also sent a request for comment to Gov. Kemp’s office: “…is there a provision in state law created by 2022’s SB 379 that prevents illegal alien employers and employees similar to the subjects of this press release by the U.S. Attorney in Georgia’s Southern District from accessing the tax-payer-funded apprenticeship program on any level?” After a “D.A., call us back…” voicemail from Kemp’s then-Executive Counsel, David Dove, I eventually received an answer from Garrison Douglas, Gov Kemp’s Press Secretary – in a Twitter/X message. It was a link to a code section (OCGA 50-36-1) that “should answer” my question. It doesn’t.

I have been working with the law Georgia’s governor cited back to me since I helped create it in 2006. As part of in that year’s SB 529, it went through the Senate Public Safety committee Kemp chaired as a state senator. I can recite much of the text. Responses to my open records requests from TCSG clearly show that it is not being used to verify the lawful presence of anybody involved in the HDCI/RAP program. The Kemp response is well worth a look.

I am confident that my own investigation of 2022’s SB 379 and the resulting taxpayer-funded “workforce development” scheme has gone far beyond any done by Kemp or the two-hundred eight state legislators who voted to create this “illegals are welcome in Georgia” gem.

Georgia’s HCDI/Registered Apprenticeship Program requires immediate reform. If you agree, please do not remain silent. Gov Kemp’s Capitol office phone line is 404-656-1776. We assume you know how to contact your state legislators.

• A version of this column ran on the subscription news & opinion outlet James Magazine Online on January 24, 2024.

“How much would it cost to give farmworkers a significant raise in pay, even if it was paid for entirely by consumers? The answer is, not that much. About the price of a couple of 12-packs of beer, a large pizza, or a nice bottle of wine.”

• Related reading: It’s not 1859. Let’s raise the pay for farmworkers here legally.

A 40% increase in pay would cost a typical family just $25 per household annually

Oct. 2020

“So, what would it cost to raise the wages of farmworkers? One of the few big wage increases for farmworkers occurred after the Bracero guestworker program ended in 1964. Under the rules of the program, Mexican Braceros were guaranteed a minimum wage of $1.40 an hour at a time when U.S. farmworkers were not covered by the minimum wage. Some farmworkers who picked table grapes were paid $1.40 an hour while working alongside Braceros in 1964, and then were offered $1.25 in 1965, prompting a strike. César Chávez became the leader of the strike and won a 40% wage increase in the first United Farm Workers table grape contract in 1966, raising grape workers’ wages to $1.75 an hour.

What would happen if there were a similar 40% wage increase today and the entire wage increase were passed on to consumers? The average hourly earnings of U.S. field and livestock workers were $14 an hour in 2019; a 40% increase would raise their wages to $19.60 an hour.

For a typical household or consumer unit, a 40% increase in farm labor costs translates into a 4% increase in the retail price of fresh fruits and vegetables (0.30 farm share of retail prices x 0.33 farm labor share of farm revenue = 10%; if farm labor costs rise 40%, retail spending rises 4%). If average farmworker earnings rose by 40%, and the increase were passed on entirely to consumers, average spending on fresh fruits and vegetables for a typical household would rise by $25 per year (4% of $615 = $24.60).”

We hope you will read the entire post from the Economic Policy Institute.

–> UPDATE, July 29, 2024: At least one public university apparently excludes illegal aliens from Dual Enrollment – HOORAY! Info here.

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High school students attend Georgia’s public colleges while paying no tuition – residency, citizenship verification not required.

• Pro-enforcement Georgians of all descriptions should be asking Gov. Kemp and lawmakers why we are paying for college classes for illegal aliens in an effort to “expand the workforce” when “the undocumented” are not generally eligible to be employed.

“While conservative Republicans wage an annual battle under the Gold Dome to stop other Republicans from changing state law so as to award in-state college tuition to Georgia’s “undocumented” foreign high school grads, it looks like we are paying for zero-cost college tuition as well as fees and books for the illegal aliens who haven’t yet graduated our tax-funded high schools.” So went part of a letter to the editor published in the Brunswick News last week from retired Border Patrol agent and INS agent, Robert Trent.

Trent, a St. Mary’s resident and active member of the Camden County Republican Party, was writing about Georgia’s Dual Enrollment program which, for taxpayers who are funding the program but who may not be aware, is best described by the Georgia Student Finance Commission: “Georgia’s Dual Enrollment Program provides students enrolled at an eligible public or private high school or home study program in Georgia the opportunity to earn high school and college credit at a participating eligible postsecondary institution in Georgia.”

Now capped at thirty semester hours, prior to changes pushed by Kemp in 2020 designed to lower costs, some students were reportedly taking 60 to 70 hours — which was making the program financially unsustainable.

About 45,000 Georgia students participated in dual enrollment last year according to reliable news reports.

• Related reading: Dual Enrollment as explained by the Georgia Dept. of Education 

This writer has been asking a variety of politicos since 2020 to point to a provision in the law or Georgia Student Finance Commission eligibility policy governing the DE program that excludes illegal aliens. A result was that the then-pending DE House bill saw a surprise, unscheduled vote.

Earlier this month I sent an open records request to the Georgia Student Finance Commission asking for a copy of any record or document that illustrated an exclusion for illegal aliens in the DE program or a verification system to check immigration status. I received a reply essentially telling me to see the laws and eligibility guidelines for myself.

I also sent a request for comment for this column to the media department at GSFC. There was no response.

We direct readers to the GSFC Dual Enrollment FAQ page, #7: “Is there a residency requirement to participate in Dual Enrollment? A: “There is no residence or citizenship requirement to participate in the Dual Enrollment program.” An online GSFC tutorial is careful to explain that a Social Security Number is not required for DE participation.

The DE program was the object of legislation in 2020 (HB 444) when it was renamed and in 2023 with SB 86 and a sixteen-member Joint Study Committee created in SR 175 – which was sponsored by twenty-two of the thirty-three Senate Republicans. At the outset of the latter endeavor, Co-Chair Rep. Matt Dubnik (R-Gainesville) explained that “We’re not trying to fix something that’s broken, We’re simply trying to take a good program and make it even better.” Georgia taxpayers may disagree when educated on the DE program. Sen. Matt Brass (R-Newnan) was lead sponsor of the above Dual Enrollment Senate legislation in 2023.

None of this legislation dealt with the fact that according to federal estimates only six states host more illegal aliens than Georgia. Or that the far-left Georgia Budget and Policy Institute says about 3000 illegals graduate from Georgia high schools each year (Update, June 1, 2024 – The Guardian says it’s 4000) . Using that number, it is logical to assume that the combined number of the now DE eligible 11^th and 12 grade students in the U.S. illegally is around 6000 – 8000 in any one school year. Ensuring that they are not draining the state education budget by benefitting from the tax-funded, discretionary DE free-college program seems like a no-brainer.

For more information on the current state of the Dual Enrollment program see the Oct. 13, 2023 James Magazine Online report.

Pro-enforcement Georgians of all descriptions should be asking Gov. Kemp and lawmakers why we are apparently paying for college classes for illegal aliens in an effort to “expand the workforce” when the “undocumented” are not generally eligible to be employed.

Democrat mayors and governors around the nation are openly wailing against the cost of caring for the literal millions of illegals being waived into the remains of the republic and dispersed into the nation’s interior by the Biden administration. Georgia is rewarding them. Including Kemp, Republican leaders in the Peach State need to explain the apparent absence of tools to insure only work-eligible high school students can access the Dual Enrollment benefits. It’s liable to be “an issue” in the 2024 elections.

A version of this essay ran on the subscription website James Magazine Online on Dec. 29, 2023, in the Glynn County (GA) The Islander newspaper on January 8, 2024 and in the (Carroll Co. GA) Star News in the Sept 14, 2024 edition.

D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPolitcsGA.com

X: @DAKDIS

UPDATE, May 6, 2024: As we feared, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones put SB 354 on the Senate floor after being educated from here on the fact that it dismantled the existing process that requires the verification of lawful presence for applicants for occupational licenses. According to Gov. Kemp’s website, SB 354 was a a “high priority” for Lt. Gov. Jones. Kemp signed SB 354 into law on May 2. Readers can catch up on SB 354 here.

“…dismantling existing law to reduce the level of illegality of illegal employment would be a very memorable, Democrat-like sort of maneuver.”

The “Red Tape Roll Back” initiative announced by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R) last week is, among other, similar goals, aimed at shrinking state government to make it easier to access business and occupational licenses. This is not a new idea.

“A regulatory environment promoting competition, while encouraging the startup and expansion of new businesses, and taking the heavy hand of government out of the equation is a priority. The reforms the Senate will lead on this year will reduce costs and paperwork while minimizing uncertainty for those who want to start or grow a business in Georgia” says Jones. Again, this is not a new agenda.

The Lt. Governor and Senate members would do well to remember that many of what special interest lobbyists refer to as “outdated barriers to employment and occupational licensing” were put in place to fight the organized crime of illegal immigration. And that despite the silence on illegal immigration in Georgia from the governor’s office, the fact is that only six states suffer more “undocumented workers” than we do.

We hope the Lt. Governor hasn’t picked up the agenda pushed by organizers of the 2021 House Study Committee on ‘Innovative Ways to Maximize Global Talent.’ If so, in a state where illegal immigration-related laws are already largely treated as inconvenient “barriers” to profit, this should not be regarded as a wise, pro-enforcement move. As this writer wrote here at the time (“House committee on ‘barriers’ skips transparency, continues one-sided agenda”) “taking the heavy hand of government out of the equation” in the 2021 push was presented as “how reducing the numbers of occupations that require a license, eliminating “antiquated restrictions” and reducing training periods … to match regulations in other states…”

The hoped-for result? A less thorough licensing process – and more profit.

With an eye on lobbyist Darlene C. Lynch at the Business and Immigration for Georgia (BIG) Partnership, it is distressing to see that many of the same anti-enforcement organizers of the extremist 2021 effort are involved in shaping the agenda for the 2024 version of “modernizing state occupational licensing requirements” and “strengthening Georgia small businesses.” As she did in the 2021 House study committee, Lynch seemed to play a prominent role in the Secretary of State’s GA WORKS Licensing Commission and the Senate Study Committee on Occupational Licensing. Gold Dome experience says there is little doubt it is also true in the Lt. Governor’s office.

Lynch’s 2021 recommendations included removing the requirement that law enforcement officers be U.S. citizens. She also patiently explained that on “overhauling licensing schemes” …there’s a couple of different ways states are doing it. One is to remove unnecessary immigration related requirements that don’t really matter for that particular profession.” Legislators would do well to familiarize themselves with all of the James Online 2021 House Study Committee reports to fully grasp what may be coming.

The 2023 Senate Study Committee is chaired by Sen. Larry Walker (R- Perry) who did not allow public comment after testimony from a long list of pre-arranged business interest witnesses in the summer meetings. Indeed, this writers written request to provide some expert, pro-enforcement balance went unanswered (committee video archive).

Many thanks to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for the public comment period he provided and for the opportunity afforded me to urge that his commission recommend that regs now in place dealing with verification of ‘lawful presence’ for business license applicants be regarded as off limits to “modernizing” the business and professional license system.

While there is no good time to reduce vigilance on making Georgia as unattractive to illegal immigration as possible, even a seemingly minor reduction or elimination of related existing laws would result in making “dollar-first Georgia” even more attractive to the millions of potential future Democrat voter, illegal aliens the Biden administration has moved into the United States since 2021.

As a reluctant denizen of the Gold Dome for most of two decades, it is disturbingly obvious that not many legislators have even a basic level of knowledge of these hard-fought statutes. I offer just one example of recommended reading for all concerned: OCGA 50-36-1, Verification of Lawful presence.

We note that if it is part of the plan, dismantling existing law to reduce the level of illegality of illegal employment would be a very memorable, Democrat-like sort of maneuver.

D.A. King is founder of the Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPolicticsGA.com .

A version of this essay was originally posted on the subscription news and opinion outlet, “James Magazine Online” on November 15, 2023.