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“…Republicans reduced access for Americans and legal immigrants by including the illegals.”

Pyler v Doe Reality

“Although Plyler was a seminal case concerning undocumented students’ access to education, it had several significant shortcomings. Most notably, it applied only to K-12 public education, so federal and state laws that bar undocumented students’ access to postsecondary college education remain in place today.” From the Columbia Law Review, September, 2018.

The landmark 1982 Plyer v Doe Supreme Court decision began when a Texas school district tried to exclude illegal aliens from an education by charging tuition in K-12 public schools. Without getting into eye-glazing detail, as referred to above, the decision requires American taxpayers to fund a K-12, public school education regardless of student’s immigration status. School districts cannot ask about immigration status.

Mostly from people who want to continue the lunacy of including illegal aliens in Georgia’s Dual Enrollment (DE) program, we are hearing the ridiculous assertion that the Plyler v Doe SCOTUS ruling somehow prevents excluding illegals from DE “because we can’t ask them about immigration status.” Nonsense.

For one thing, we dont need to ask – merely require that all DE beneficiaries be either U.S. citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents (aka “green card” holders). An application for DE is handled by the Georgia Student Finance Commission. And they make it clear no SSN is required.

According to the Georgia Department of Education “Dual Enrollment is designed to prepare students for college and career opportunities leading students to postsecondary institutions for an industry-recognized certification or licensure, an associate and/or higher college degree, and successful employment.”

• Related reading from the U.S. Dept. of Education: “School districts may not request information about the citizenship or immigration status of students or their families with the purpose or result of denying them access to educational opportunities.”

Georgia taxpayers are paying 100% of the college tuition — and books and fees for DE recipients – including the illegal aliens. Here, all concerned need to be reminded that illegal aliens are not eligible for employment under federal law. Why are we prepping them for a career?  Is it a nod to an upcoming amnesty attempt?

College classes are not K-12. The very fact that tuition is involved clearly separates Dual Enrollment from K-12. Nothing in Plyler v Doe applies to DE. It’s true that school districts are prohibited from asking K-12 students about their immigration status. But again, it is not necessary to ask about immigration status to keep illegal aliens out of DE – just as Georgia excludes them from the recently instituted K-12 “school choice” benefit (*see line 342 of 2024’s SB 233).

The 2025 state budget has more than $91 million ready to go for the DE program.

In a cost reduction move several years ago, the Republican-ruled General Assembly put a limit on the number of class hours any DE student could take instead of excluding the illegal aliens. Put another way, Republicans reduced access for Americans and legal immigrants by including the illegals.

• Related reading: Model language for DE reform in Georgia

About 4000 illegal aliens graduate from Georgia high schools each year according to recent figures from the leftist “The Guardian” news outlet.

How many illegal aliens are getting a no-cost college education courtesy of our tax dollars from the DE benefit? Including this writer, for most pro-enforcement conservatives, one is too many. Judging from the absence of loud and fearless pushback on the Dual Enrollment arrangement, that sentiment apparently does not apply to most Republicans.

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A version of this column was also published in the December 9, 2024 edition of the Glynn County newspaper The Islander.

*Updated with a correction on the year SB 233 “school choice” bill passed which was 2024.

“…the former House speaker earned “Four Pinocchio’s.”  

Fox News

Nov. 14, 2024

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was fact-checked on Wednesday by The Washington Post for claiming that fewer migrants came into the U.S. under President Biden than under President-elect Trump’s first term.

“I don’t think we were clear enough by saying fewer people came in under President Joe Biden than came under Donald Trump,” Pelosi told The New York Times during a recent interview. “It’s clarity of the message, and if that’s what [Sen.] Bernie’s [Sanders] talking about, and that’s what [Sen.] Joe Manchin’s talking about, we weren’t clear in our message as to what things are, then I agree with that.”

The Washington Post published a fact-check on the claim on Wednesday, and noted that it was “documented fact” that “at least four times as many migrants entered the United States under Biden than under Trump.”

An aide told the outlet that Pelsoi was referring to deportations during the interview and pointed to numbers in a Reuters report, according to the Post.

“It showed that in fiscal year 2024, Biden was on pace to exceed the number of deportations of any single year under Trump. But the article did not say that deportations under Biden would be higher than they were under Trump — far from it. Through four years, Biden almost certainly will have fewer deportations than Trump, according to the Reuters count,” the Post’s report read.

The outlet reported that Pelosi’s claim “veers even more off course” when they dig deeper into the numbers and said the former House speaker earned “Four Pinocchio’s.”

During the same New York Times interview, Pelosi suggested Vice President Kamala Harris might have won if Biden dropped out sooner.    Here.

• Unlike American veterans when they apply for medical care at the VA, illegal aliens do not undergo a means test for taxpayer-funded, no-cost care in U.S. emergency rooms.

A version  of the below commentary was originally published in the Washington Times newspaper in 2006 and is republished here with permission. While the income eligibility thresholds have been adjusted since then, VA priorities remain about the same. Readers can see the current requirements for Category 8 g  vets at “VA Priority Groups” on the VA.gov website.

In 1966 my friend Fred was sent to Vietnam and survived a year as a door gunner on a U. S. Army “Huey” helicopter gunship. You won’t hear it from him, so I will tell you that Fred had one of the most dangerous jobs possible in that long ago and divisive war. While Fred’s ship went down more than ten times in action, he came home without a scratch.

Welcome home Fred Dague — and thank you.

Unlike Fred, in 1970, after observing my 18th birthday in Marine Corps boot camp, I was drew duty in sunny southern California.

We both kept our promises to our nation.

Like our fathers, as young recruits, both Fred and I were promised lifetime free medical care by our government as a benefit of our service.

We are learning that this is not our father’s America.

As “50 somethings,” Fred and I have both applied to the Veteran’s Administration for those promised medical benefits.

In 2004, both of our applications for that promised free health care were denied.

The response from the VA reads in part: “Each year, the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs determines which priority groups will be enrolled in the VA health system.  You are not eligible for enrollment or VA health care for most conditions.”

Fred and I have been placed in the “Priority Group 8g, which means that we applied after January 2003, earned over $31,000 last year, and have no service related ailments — thereby disqualifying us for the free medical care we were promised as young men.

Priority Groups are the result of the federal government’s budgetary shortages. Veterans without service-connected health problems are now held up to a means test to determine eligibility for VA medical benefits. For now, we can both make do without the promised care, but many of the approximately 200,000 other category 8g veterans cannot.

So much for the promise. So much for priorities.

For Fred, myself and the other vets who are denied or offered limited medical care from our government, these priorities are difficult to accept while we watch millions of illegal aliens not only demanding, but receiving taxpayer funded free medical care at American emergency rooms and clinics.

• Related reading: Illegal Immigrants Leave US Hospitals With Billions In Unpaid Bills

There is no “means test” for the free health care provided for anyone — from anywhere in the world — who can illegally cross our intentionally unsecured borders and get within 250 yards of an American emergency room. It’s the law.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985 (EMTALA) is a law that is vigorously enforced.

We are taxpayers, Fred and I, so to us, it is a little more than ironic that as veterans, we are paying for health care for millions of illegal aliens while we are not eligible for that same promised free care from our own Veterans Administration.

The Medicare Prescription Drug Modernization Act of 2003 included one billion dollars to help reimburse American hospitals for the federally mandated health care that they must provide to illegal aliens. It included nothing to help Priority Group 8g veterans.

Priorities indeed.

Because illegals and their criminal employers seem to have a better lobby than American vets in Washington, our nation is keeping the promise to the illegal aliens.

The same people who have decided which promises to keep have also made a decision on which of our laws are enforced. Not that anyone asked, but if it is a matter of priorities, in our own search for a better life, Fred and I would much rather see the laws that apply to border security and illegal immigration enforced and the VA Priority Groups ignored.

If it is a matter of priorities.

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Mr. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society, a Georgia-based coalition dedicated to educating the public on the consequences of illegal immigration.

On the Web: NewDustinInmanSociety.org    —  X/Twitter: @DAKDIS

Illegal immigration will cost taxpayers $2 trillion in Medicare spending in a Kamala Harris Medicare for All system, according to a Tholos Foundation study published Tuesday.

The study discusses the immense strain Harris’s amnesty plan would put on the Medicare system; specifically, under her own Medicare for All proposal.

While Vice President Kamala Harris may pretend she doesn’t support Medicare for All, ATR has compiled several of her passionate statements in support:

Harris was the first Senator to co-sponsor Senator Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill. Their proposal goes even further left than most foreign versions of socialized medicine. Canada, for example, has about 30 percent of its healthcare spending coming from the private insurance market. The Sanders-Harris proposal would have none. Harris was clearly passionate about the plan, as she personally authored her own Medicare for All plan during her own presidential run in 2020.

Further, both Harris and VP candidate Tim Walz have come out in support of a pathway to citizenship for the 11 to 12.5 million illegal immigrants (Note:  It is our educated opinion that the number of illegal aliens now in the United States exceeds 25 million – D.A. King) now residing in the U.S.

Given the ensuing insolvency of Medicare by 2036, these contentious proposals could prove disastrous, especially if both are accomplished under a Harris-Walz administration.

As the study explains, an estimated 90 percent of illegal immigrants are under 55, meaning that under our current Medicare system, amnesty would significantly increase those covered, costing $163,650 per person over 10 years. In this way, the sum cost of every illegal alien’s first 10 years receiving benefits would be $1.8 trillion.

Additionally, under Medicare for All, amnesty would cost an additional $2 trillion over just the next 10 years. The cost of socialized healthcare is an unimaginable strain, given that the United States is on the brink of a fiscal crisis. The national debt is over $35 trillion, and the U.S. government is on track to spend over $1 trillion on interest payments by the end of this month.

Under Medicare for All, Americans Would Pay an Additional $14.3 Trillion in Taxes

Taxpayers would be on the hook for the additional costs of amnesty. The Medicare for All plan Kamala Harris endorsed as a Senator would increase taxes by $14.3 trillion over the next decade, roughly $26,000 per household per year. This would pay for a fraction of the $44 trillion cost of single payer healthcare.

By Senator Sanders’ own admission, Americans making more than $29,000 per year would pay more in taxes under Medicare For All. Of course, this would violate Kamala Harris’s pledge to not raise any tax on anyone earning less than $400,000.

The list of proposed tax hikes in the Sanders-Harris plan are unfathomable. They include a new 4 percent employee payroll tax, a new 7 percent employer payroll tax, the elimination of health tax expenditures, the elimination of HSAs, a 70 percent top tax bracket for ordinary income/capital gains, a 77 percent death tax, and many more.

Medicare for All Risks Bankrupting the Country if Substantive Policy Reforms are Not Adopted

The Tholos Foundation also cites potential reforms to address immigration, Medicare, and fiscal issues. For example, implementing “a strong federal spending limit, capping annual spending growth at a maximum rate of population growth plus inflation, similar to Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).”

The study also discusses potential work requirements and block grants for social programs:

“Expanding work requirements and block grants to states for government social programs, like Medicaid, would better ensure that native-born and foreign-born recipients contribute economically. Implementing work requirements for these programs would support increased self-sufficiency and reduce dependency on taxpayer-funded programs.”

In addition to visa auction and market-driven immigration reform, the paper discusses the importance of the rule of law and enforcing the border policies we have in place:

“… the economic benefits of immigration must be balanced against the short-term costs and the rule of law. The U.S. is a sovereign country with borders and legal processes for entry and citizenship. While immigration can support more economic growth, it is essential to maintain the integrity of the legal system and avoid incentivizing illegal entry, which undermines the rule of law and imposes costs on taxpayers.”

As Milton Friedman once said, “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.”

Both Medicare for All and amnesty would cost taxpayers trillions of dollars. Together, the costs would be devastating – accelerating the Medicare system into ruin. While we must resist these efforts, it is imperative that we implement reforms with sustainable budgets and rule of law in mind.

To read the study in full, click here .