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Letter to the editor James Magazine Online – Registered Apprenticeship Program

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The below letter was forwarded here by the editors at James Magazine Online. Many thanks to Ms. Jessica Vaughan at CIS!

January 29, 2024
Editors JMO
Greetings,
I am writing to respond to a recent article by D.A. King, on January 24.  Ga. HDCI/Registered Apprenticeship Program Requires Reform | James Magazine Online (jamesmagazinega.com).
I was stunned to learn that Gov. Kemp’s new apprenticeship program allows participating employers to hire illegal aliens or foreign temporary visa workers.  This is crazy.  Any workforce development program should be entirely focused on upskilling Georgia workers (citizens and legal immigrants), not subsidizing employers to bypass them.
For one thing, it is illegal for employers to hire unauthorized workers, and employers who violate the law should not be supported with taxpayer funds.  For another, there are only 120 subsidized apprenticeships available, and so every illegal immigrant or temporary visa worker who is chosen is displacing a Georgia worker from the opportunity. There are thousands of able-bodied Georgia workers who need to be drawn back into the workforce, but who have been sidelined for a variety of reasons — including the need for training.
Further, while temporary workers are here legally and authorized to work, they are already required to have at least a college degree or comparable experience in the specific job they are being sponsored for; if they do not meet the requirements of that job, they are supposed to go home, not receive taxpayer-subsidized training for a different job.
It should not be controversial to clarify the rules of the program so that only Georgia citizens and legal immigrants can participate in the program.  Why would Georgia leaders resist calls to make this common sense modification?
Thank you for publishing Mr. King’s excellent report.

Jessica M. Vaughan

Director of Policy Studies
@Jessi**** **

 

 

 

What is the H-1B Visa?

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American Immigration Council

What is the H-1B Visa Category?

August 18, 2023

 

The H-1B is a temporary (nonimmigrant) visa category that allows employers to petition for highly educated foreign professionals to work in “specialty occupations” that require at least a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent. Jobs in fields such as mathematics, engineering, technology, and medical sciences often qualify. Typically, the initial duration of an H-1B visa classification is three years, which may be extended for a maximum of six years.

Before an employer can file a petition with USCIS, the employer must take steps to ensure that hiring the foreign worker will not harm U.S. workers.

  • Employers first must attest, on a labor condition application (LCA) certified by the Department of Labor (DOL), that employment of the H-1B worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
  • Employers must also provide existing workers with notice of their intention to hire an H-1B worker.

Since the category was created in 1990, Congress has limited the number of H-1Bs made available each year. The current annual statutory cap is 65,000 visas, with 20,000 additional visas for foreign professionals who graduate with a master’s degree or doctorate from a U.S. institution of higher learning (Figure 1). For Fiscal Year FY 2023, the cap was reached on August 23, 2022.

Here.

GA Senate study committee recommends occupational licensing reciprocity – which eliminates existing immigration status check. Bill pending (SB 354) *Updated

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Republicans should watch Lt. Governor Burt Jones

  • Update: March 31, 2024: Despite my “heads up” warnings to various key Republican House members (including two written explanations to House Regulated Industries committee Chairman Alan Powell) SB 354 from Sen. Larry Walker passed the House on March 26 with a minor change. Only two Republicans voted “no” – congrats and many thanks to Rep Kimberly New and Rep Sharon Cooper for resisting the pressure from the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Sen. Walker’s bill then breezed through the Senate again with an “agree” vote on the last day of the 2024 session. Note: That happened despite my early AM “…you have a second chance to stop a bad bill…” text exchange with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones before the legislative day began. All vote records here.
  • Update: January 30, 2024: SB 354 passed in the Georgia Senate the morning of January 29, while we were calling and emailing to stop it. Number of Republican members who voted against it: zero.

 

Georgia should “…move to universal recognition (reciprocity) of out-of-state licenses.” That is the recommendation of the Senate Study Committee on Occupational Licensing chaired by Senator Larry Walker (R- Perry) after finishing several months of hearing pleas from special interest lobbyists for a reduction in the time it takes to process new occupational licenses. The recommendation says “where reasonable.”

Sen. Larry Walker (R- Perry) lead sponsor of SB 354 & SR 85.

Walker’s study committee was created by the Walker-sponsored Senate Resolution 85 which passed in the Senate Chamber last session with only a single “no” vote. Interestingly, that vote against passage of the resolution came from Sen. Blake Tillery (R- Vidalia) who was also one of  the many Republican cosponsors of the measure.

Walker’s resolution described Georgia’s current occupational licensing requirements as “onerous” and “burdensome.” Including this one, Capitol insiders who have watched the growing power of the partnership between the business lobby and the refugee, illegal alien industry see the obvious input from Darlene Lynch (she/her), her fellow leftist associates at the “BIG Partnership” and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce in Walker’s effort.

Readers can see the recommendation in the committee’s final report (item 9). We warned Senate legislators about exactly this after the Walker/Lynch resolution dropped last March. 

Backed by the dollar-first business lobby, the aforementioned Lynch has pushed for allowing foreigners to be certified law enforcement officers in Georgia and for dismantling the state’s system of verifying “lawful presence” of applicants for occupational and professional licenses for years under the Gold Dome.

  • Darlene Lynch – related reading from 2021: Study Committee on Innovative Ways to Maximize Global Talent (including foreign cops) excludes pro-American worker voices  

Senate Bill 354 dismantles existing law on verification of lawful presence for covered workers

Walker is also the sponsor of SB 354 which passed out of the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities committee on January 24th – a super-speedy two-days after first reading in the Senate chamber. Walker and his cosponsors are moving ahead with changing state law so that various workers related to cosmetology and barbers would no longer go through the occupational licensing process – which means they would no longer go through the verification of lawful presence procedure in OCGA 50-36-1. This bill should be viewed as a test case from Walker and the special interest lobby before moving on to electricians and carpenter trades etc.

Not many Georgians are going to notice a rushed-up, quiet change in state law that only applies to entry level workers who shampoo hair. But many of the millions of illegal aliens being waved through at our southern border will get wind of this new attitude and policy before the end of the 2024 legislative session. It’s a perfect example of “if you build it, they will come.”

One has only to imagine the condition of a “New Georgia” of only a few years in the future if we allow Democrats in California, New York and Illinois to decide who can go to work in Georgia.

Then-state Senator Burt Jones speaks at a Trump rally, 2020.

Lt. Governor Burt Jones and the “MAGA” crowd

Republicans watching to see which GOP candidates for the 2026 gubernatorial race are on the pro-enforcement side of the contest between Joe Biden and the constitution on the invasion at the southern border should keep an eye on Lt. Governor Burt Jones. Will he allow Walker & Co.’s SB 354 and anti-enforcement bills like it to see final passage in the Senate? Update, March 31, 2024: The answer is “yes.”

No matter who Jones supports in the presidential race, dismantling the verification of lawful presence system for any workers in Georgia would be a memorable campaign detail for primary opposition two years from now.

Nobody paying attention at the Capitol doesn’t understand that Gov. Kemp would run, not walk, to sign a bill like Walker’s occupational license reciprocity legislation.

 

 

#SB354, #BurtJones, #DarleneLynch, #LarryWalker

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illegal immigration: Georgia’s Registered Apprenticeship Program requires immediate reform

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“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).

GA state Sen. Brian Strickland (R).

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.

Ga state Rep Chuck Martin (R)

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.

Despite state laws, illegal aliens run businesses in Georgia and they hire illegal aliens

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Left: GA AG Chris Carr, Gov Brian Kemp.

Two examples:

Illegal alien faces 50-year prison term after admitting multi-million-dollar conspiracy to harbor other illegals for labor

March 28, 2022

  • U.S. Attorney press release here.

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Georgia business owner, illegal alien charged with exploiting illegal workers

May 9, 2019

  • ICE press release here.

 

Apprentice ID generated wether or not the registration includes a Social Security Number – SB 379 (2022)

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The below email was received here on January 19, 2024 at 3:27 PM. Our email with the question is on the bottom of the page.

 

 

Hello *** *****

Hope This Finds You Well!

The RAPIDS Apprentice ID is generated weather or not the registration includes an SSN.

Here is the Definition for the Apprentices ID number from one of our best Program Analyst.

The apprentice ID is a 12 digit alpha numeric number.

The alpha part is the 2 letter state abbreviation for the state the apprentice is being registered (this would be different for National Programs (ZA) or programs routed to a different state, followed by a 4 digit year (FY they are registered) the rest is generated by the system in the order apprentices are registered across the entire system.

Hope that helps

Thanks,

Stephanie Schmitt  l   Program Analyst    
U.S. Department of Labor
Office of Apprenticeship

Division of National System Building

Performance, Planning, Systems, Evaluations, and Analysis Unit

Have a great day!

Marc L. DeCoster

Multi-State Navigator Region 5

USDOL/Office of Apprenticeship

Chicago

☎ Phone:  313-771-6342   ☎ Cell: 313-605-3991

https://www.apprenticeship.gov/

_______

Sent Jan. 19,2024 at  12:17 PM
Mr. Guido
 

As prep in our office we are learning about the RPA, the apprentice application and RAPIDS.

 
I called the resolution center in Washington, but they could not answer my question and directed me to you.
 
I see the back of the Program Registration and Apprenticeship Agreement  – 4th paragraph up from bottom (“Part C. Item 4. Definition.”) that is just above a longer explanation that an SSN is not required to register for the Apprenticeship program. I’ll post a screen shot below for clarity. 
 
The Part C. info says that when an SSN is entered, RAPIDS encrypts the SSN and then issues a unique ID number to identify the apprentice.“It replaces the Social security Number to protect the apprentice’s privacy.”
1) We are asking if the applicant does not enter an SSN, does RAPIDS still issue a unique number to identify the apprentice?? Put differently, Is that unique ID number generated whether or not the apprentice enters an SSN?
 
2) Is the unique ID number generated by RAPIDS a nine digit number,  pls? 
 
Thanks if you have time for an educational  reply.
**** ******

 

What would a 40% pay raise for H-2A farm labor cost a typical family for fresh fruits and vegetables?

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“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.

Rep. Mark Green: DHS Chief Mayorkas Has Imported 5 Million Illegal Aliens — Outpacing Annual U.S. Births

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Breitbart News

Jan 10, 2024

“…a boon for big business.”

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has brought five million illegal aliens to the United States in three years, a foreign population that outpaces the nation’s annual births, Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) says.

Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, opened impeachment hearings against Mayorkas on Wednesday. In his opening statements, Green detailed Mayorkas’s expansive Catch and Release network, in which the DHS briefly processes a reported 85 percent of illegal aliens before releasing them into American communities

“Multiple sources confirmed Secretary Mayorkas admitted that release rates of illegal aliens are currently around 85 percent,” Green said:

All told, DHS numbers indicate that well over three million inadmissible aliens have been released into our country on Secretary Mayorkas’s watch. Factor in the 1.8 million known gotaways, and that’s roughly the population of the state of South Carolina. [Emphasis added]

The figure suggests that Mayorkas has released more illegal aliens into American communities from 2021 through 2023 than the number of babies born annually in the U.S., which is fewer than four million.

The majority of these illegal aliens, released via parole, will end up securing work permits to hold American jobs — a boon for big business, Wall Street, and real estate investors looking to keep wages low by inflating the labor market, add as many residents to the population to drive up housing demand, and increase the supply of consumers to whom they can sell products… the rest here.

 

Martha Zoller should stop digging – but does allow that “anybody whose child or is killed because of a person who’s an illegal immigrant, that is a wrong thing to do”

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Republican radio show host Martha Zoller says illegal immigration has increased so much that Brian Kemp “had to change his tactics” and abandon his campaign promises on “criminal illegals” and ending sanctuary cities.
“Enforcing the law should not be partisan.”
The below is from the Martha Zoller radio show, Jan. 18, 2024. Transcript by Rev.com. My cost $12.00 and about 1.5 hours of my time.
Martha Zoller on air: In response to a text Martha read from a listener noting that Gov Brian Kemp has not honored his 2018 campaign promises on illegal immigration and asking if she ever has D.A. King on her show:
 Zoller quickly starts with “I know D.A. King very well… he is the only person I have blocked on Twitter…”
Transcript from recording, still on D.A. King

“…Uh, and I’ve done it because he is unreasonable in his points of view. Um, I’ve worked with him on many issues related to Dustin Inman Society. I helped him raise money. I’ve been involved with it. And because I believe that Governor Kemp… First of all, you can’t assume every Hispanic person you see is an illegal immigrant. And that if they don’t speak English well, that they’re illegal. Okay, that’s- that’s unfair, that’s prejudiced. It’s not racist, it’s prejudiced, you’re, you have a prejudice against this person, okay. But what I will say is, um, we have pretty tough laws as it relates to illegal immigration and- and the governor has helped with the National Guard, he’s done all kinds of things with Governor Greg Abbott as far as the border crisis is concerned. Yes, you’re right, he hasn’t been “rounding up illegal immigrants” like he said in his primary ad. And I didn’t like that ad.

Screenshot, Brian Kemp 2018 TV campaign ad.

I was one of those people that, um, was seeing… I got to see those ads early and I picked the Jake one. I loved it. Where he was sitting on the porch by one of Jake Dateman’s daughter, I loved that. I thought it had a great sense of humor. And then the other one I liked was him taking a chainsaw to regulation. I didn’t like the- the pickup truck one, but that’s the one they went through. And I just believe the situation of, if you can’t look at the situation on the border and see that the s- that the game has changed, and that we’re gonna need different tactics to deal with it, then I can’t really talk to you about it. But, um, we’re gonna take a break and when we come back we’ll take you up to the top of the hour. I will look up Kayla Hamilton and, uh, try to be a little more knowledgeable about that. We’ll be back.*

  • Related: Dear Davos elites: Please tell your witch doctor to cast a spell GA. Gov. Brian Kemp while he is there?

Martha Zoller on air:

… first. Now, I looked up the Kayla Hamilton case. This happened in July of 2022. Uh, she was, um, autistic woman who was killed by an MS-13 gang member, um, and, um, you know, there, you know, is… She sent messages to President Biden, and look, anybody… Dustin Inman, anybody whose child or is killed because of a person who’s an illegal immigrant, that is a wrong thing to do. That is the, the wrong thing. Um, that is somebody that shouldn’t be in this country, so that person should still be safe and sound. So we should work hard against that, and that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

We have got to secure the border, number one. You can join us on the phones at 770-535-2911, and I believe that we can do it. You know, I believe that we can deal with all of these things, and we can… we showed that we can do it during the Trump administration and, to some degree, during the, the Obama administration. The Obama… Obama was very tough on immigration. He deported more people every year. He, um… He didn’t do all this, “Come one, come all,” kind of stuff. He was very interesting because in front of his crowds, he would say one thing, but how he implemented the law was very different. And I’m sure that had to do, to some degree, with the fact that he had people that were legal immigrants in his life, and when you talk to people who were legal immigrants, who came here legally, they are very hard-line as it comes to the border situation.

But then you had Donald Trump come in, and he did the remain in Mexico. And he did a number of things, and he got the number of children, especially, in custody down to less than 500. And the sad thing about that was that those were people that they couldn’t find their families or their families didn’t want them. That’s really hard to imagine. Um, now we’re up to s- … of children in custody, and the reason why just whole separating kids from their parents, the reason why children… by and large, is they don’t have documentation they belong to that adult, and there is some rel- … reason to believe there might be something going on that’s… that could be bad for the child, either sex trafficking, labor trafficking, sut- …

We don’t just separate children from their parents, and we’ve got to stop making this a partisan issue because Republicans go in office, and we… we’re, we’re hard-line about it. Democrats come in, and we soften up. And then we go back and forth and back an- … Enforcing the law should not be partisan. Enforcing the law should be what we all do and that… what we all support, or we do what Governor Deal did when he was a congressman. You enforce the law, or you… if you don’t think the law fits anymore, then you change law. And that’s what you do. So I appreciate the [inaudible 00:03:12] from people, um, that related to this. You’ve got to really be… got to get on the same page as far as illegal immigration goes.

Um… in Cleveland said, “I’m so sick of democrats referring to our country as democracy. Thomas Jefferson had to say about democracies, ‘A democracy is nothing more than [inaudible 00:03:32] over 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 40.’ They are a constitutional republic.” That’s Don from Cl- Cleveland. We… representative republic. We are a consti-