Legislation to allow foreign nationals as police officers pushed again
The Georgia Chamber of Commerce is now openly supporting lower tuition rates in our public colleges for illegal aliens who migrated to Georgia than Americans and legal immigrants who live in other states.
That was just one of the eye-openers from the third and final meeting of the House Study Committee on ‘Innovative Ways to Maximize Global Talent’ at the state Capitol late last month. As this writer has previously reported (‘Georgia House committee with immigration focus solicits one-sided, activist input‘), Chairman Rep Wes Cantrell (R- Woodstock) made the committee’s goals clear in the first hearing “…this committee has been formed to identify and make recommendations for removal of any barriers that limit the impact of our foreign-born population.”
This long time denizen of the Capitol has not witnessed proceedings with a higher farce factor.
The powerful Chamber was not alone in pushing lowered tuition rates for illegals. That topic was worked into the presentations of many of the long list of handpicked advocates for an immigration amnesty, expanded state government, increased foreign labor and lower wages including the immigration amnesty advocates from Big Tech’s FWD.us.
While it is quite active in the state Capitol, most Georgians – including most Republican legislators – are not well versed on FWDus. That fact does not bode well for conservative voters. One relevant policy initiative posted on the FWD.us website is entitled “Fixing Our Harmful Immigration System.” Discover the Networks, an online database of the left and its agenda describes the billionaire-funded lobbying group this way: “launched on April 11, 2013, and drawing its name from President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign slogan, (Forward). FWD.us is a pro-Democrat organization founded by thirteen tech-industry leaders to promote the passage of “comprehensive immigration reform” in the United States.”
Related: FWD.us launches national ad supporting a repeat of the failed 1986 immigration amnesty
Jaime Rangel, an illegal alien, DACA beneficiary and darling of Georgia’s liberal media represents FWD.us under the Gold Dome. Lobbyist Rangel was called to be a witness in two of the three-committee meetings. Be wary of “misinformation.” he told the panel. “We’re just asking for a fighting chance to pay in-state tuition.” He did not mention the sure-to-come battle to expand any future state law granting special, lowered tuition rates to the hordes of illegal aliens swarming over the U.S. border as I type and who are on their way to Georgia.
For the attentive and curious, yes, this is the same FWD.us to which the liberal AJC now links in online news stories on immigration, Cantrell’s committee and “…barriers that hold immigrants back from labor force.”
Proposals that will interest voters but omitted from scant media coverage of the committee agenda include a repeat of the call for changing state law so as to allow foreign law enforcement officers, international occupational licensing reciprocity along with yet another push to “relax” immigration status verification in Georgia’s occupational licensing process. See also granting refugees “in-state” status for tuition purposes upon arrival. No waiting period.
Another change put forth by the “expert witnesses” was reducing the educational period to become a medical doctor by two years, student loan forgiveness for foreign medical students and “relaxing the immigration issues for foreign medical graduates.”
There was a quite serious proposal for Georgia to create “an office or a division of cultural and linguistic responsiveness.” That last plea to create another state bureaucracy came in the testimony from Dr. Pierluigi Mancini of the Multicultural Development Institute Inc. – MCDI. A quick look at the MCDI’s website assures us they are committed to “racial justice” – via Black Lives Matter Inc.
We remind the reader that the Republican-chaired committee solicited all of the witnesses. I lost track of the number of times “…the number one state for business” was tossed out.
Fact: The average tuition & fees for Colleges in Georgia is $4,739 for in-state and $17,008 for out of state
With the donor money and the liberal media now openly promoting the public college tuition reduction for illegal aliens there is a time sensitive need for voting Georgians to understand what comes next.
Republican state Rep Kasey Carpenter (Dalton) tried and failed to slip his HB 120 through last session. In its third iteration, the bill came out of the House Higher Education Committee (vote record) – but not the House Rules Committee.
It seems not many Republican House members wanted to vote on it.
That reluctance is unlikely to change in an even-numbered year. But it should be repeated until state legislators and trusting GOP voters get the message: HB 120 is written to be expanded at a future date (see line 31) and does indeed allow illegal aliens to pay lower tuition rates in Georgia’s taxpayer-funded postsecondary schools than U.S. citizens and legal immigrants from (most) other states. Carpenter is a member of the committee.
To pass in 2022 Carpenter’s bill must now start the House committee process over again. Education on its contents is key to stopping HB 120.
It’s worth asking now – would Governor Kemp sign such a bill?
Agenda and players here. Transcript and official video here.
D.A. King is proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com and president of the Dustin Inman Society.
A version of the above column originally ran on the subscription website Insider Advantage Georgia .
