Video record of the presentation of HB 1432 to the House Industry and Labor subcommittee today – here.
From the “what could go wrong?” department: While we wait for the Republicans under the Gold Dome to pass Rep Jesse Petrea’s now celebrated pro-enforcement immigration legislation (HB 1105), we note the post-Crossover Day introduction of a bill from Matt Reeves (R – Duluth). Petrea’s effort can easily be described as a bill that says we will finally enforce some of the state illegal immigration-related laws passed nearly two decades ago.
Reeves is promising future enforcement of a long list of new state immigration laws he wants to put in place next year. He wants to create a Georgia guest worker program. I am not joking – neither is Reeves.
From HB 1432: “The state administered guest worker program shall be for the purpose of filling needed labor shortages in the State of Georgia through the hiring by employers within this state of willing citizens of other nations to perform work in this state for limited periods of time.”
Here it should be noted that there are at least eleven different visa categories in place today owned and operated by the federal government.
Reeves’ new work force expansion program would allow a Georgia-directed temporary foreign worker to bring a spouse and minor children, all of whom would be issued a Georgia “guest worker ID card.”
Some of the new enforcement requirements would entail collecting a fee from a participating Georgia employer to offset the costs of administering the guest worker program; to check that the employer provides health insurance for the guest worker – and to verify the guest worker has health insurance in place for his family that come with him to the Peach State.
The employer would also “agree to provide housing for such temporary and accompanying family members through housing provided by the employer or other rental or public housing.” The employer would “agree to provide each guest worker with three meals a day or furnish free and convenient cooking and kitchen facilities to the guest workers that will enable the guest workers to prepare their own meals.”
Reeves is tacitly promising that the proposed state-created guest workers will be treated better in Georgia than the federally supervised foreign workers. We doubt it.
We are duty bound to remind all concerned that when a state action aimed at sanctions for illegal employment or “undocumented workers” arises, either the business lobby or the corporate-funded, ethnic-hustlers invariably howl that “immigration and enforcement is a federal issue!”
According to the 2023 edition of the federal ‘Entry/Exit Overstay Report’ 853,955 temporary visa holders refused to go home when their temporary visas expired in 2022.
* Related reading: “There is nothing more permanent than a temporary worker.”
Reeves’ promises five years in prison and a large fine for guest workers who don’t return to their home countries upon termination of their state guest worker status. Apparently, the Georgia Department of Labor would get into the temporary foreign worker tracking business.
One can’t help but imagine the news coverage of a “temporary worker” brought here by the Georgia government who refuses to leave while screaming “my kid was born here and is an American citizen – we won’t leave! – gimme our taxpayer-funded private school, ‘school choice’ tuition!”
In case it is relevant, it should at least be mentioned that Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary said in a sharply worded statement that his country would refuse to take anyone back who is ordered to leave the U.S. under a state law and that it “categorically rejects” any state or local government enforcement of immigration laws according to a recent AP report.
In addition to Reeves, the signers on HB 1432 are Reps Reynaldo Martinez (R – Loganville), Derrick Jackson (D- Tyrone), Shelly Hutchinson (D- Snellville), Mary Margaret Oliver (D – Decatur), Alan Powell (R- Hartwell), Saira Draper (D – Atlanta), Farooq Mughal (D- Dacula), Steve Tarvin (R- Chickamauga), Yasmin Neal (D- Jonesboro), Derrick McCollum (R-Chestnut Mountain) and Kasey Carpenter (R- Dalton).
What could go wrong?
D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com .
