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“The bill defines “parents” as “a biological parent, legal guardian, custodian, or other person with legal authority to act on behalf of a student.”

It took several years of work from pro-enforcement advocates, but Georgia’s pending “school choice” bill, SB 233 (LC 49 1473S) excludes illegal alien students. See lines 82 & 83. Because it is intentionally cryptic, we posted an easy to understand explanation elsewhere for curious readers.

School choice is a solid conservative idea if done responsibly – but the current version still doesn’t fit that description. Not for the first time, we note that SB 233 contains no exclusion for illegal alien “parents.” This writer predicts this easily remedied fact will be a significant problem for bill sponsors and Gov. Kemp when trusting GOP voters are educated on the details of the legislation.

The bill defines “parents” (on lines 37 & 38) as “a biological parent, legal guardian, custodian, or other person with legal authority to act on behalf of a student.” It makes the parent the applicant for the student to access the taxpayer funded “Promise Scholarship” benefit (see line 105).

Federal statistics reveal that over 300,000 illegal “migrants” entered the U.S last month (Dec. 2023) – more than the population of Savannah, Marietta and Warner Robins combined. Legislators ignore this reality at their political peril.

Hardworking Georgians will likely not take kindly to a GOP-pushed law that allows any illegals to apply for a discretionary taxpayer-funded benefit – including private school tuition.

• Related: Estimates are that 400,000 illegal aliens called Georgia home in 2018

The same taxpayers may have a strong objection to a law that names any illegally present “parent” as the “recognized recipient” of state funds for private school tuition as laid out in lines 126-129: “Any account funds directed to a participating school or service provider are so directed on behalf of the participating student’s parent, the recognized recipient of such participating student’s account funds, and wholly as a result of the genuine and independent private choice of the parent.”

More, from lines 208-211: “The commission shall develop a system for parents to direct account funds to participating schools and service providers by electronic funds transfer, automated clearing-house transfer, or another system that the commission finds to be commercially viable, cost-effective, and easy for parents of participating students to use.”

Lines 211- 214 create a scenario in which the state of Georgia could easily be in the position of sending tax dollars directly to illegal alien “parents” to reimburse them for out-of-pocket expenses and/or “certain qualified education expenses.”

It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that most conservative voters aren’t going to sit quietly while a law is put in place that would allow illegal aliens to serve on a school choice oversight committee either. But SB 233 does exactly that. “Parents” would serve on a parental review committee that would oversee eligible expenses for school choice benefits – see lines 238-240: “To assist in the determination of whether certain expenses meet the requirements to be considered a qualified education expense under this chapter, a parent review committee shall be established.”

And this from lines & 253-254: “The commission may request the (parent review) committee to determine whether an expenditure of account funds from an account qualifies as a qualified education expense under this chapter.”

More on parents’ participation: “(line 48) Qualified education expenses’ means any one or more of the following: … “Other expenses authorized by the State Board of Education or the commission; or Individual education expenses authorized by a majority of the parent review committee provided for in Code Section 20-2B-6 (lines 64-66).”

There are several commonsense solutions to all this. It seems that the simplest is to insert language into the bill that designates the “Promise Scholarship” school choice benefit as a “state grant.” That should require the applicant – the “parent” – to complete the “verification of lawful presence” process that is already in OCGA 50-36-1. Shorter: It would exclude illegal alien parents – if the law was enforced.

It is noteworthy that several inquiries have reportedly already been made to the Attorney General’s office asking if the school choice scholarship would be a state grant in the bill as is. I understand that the AG has informed more than one state legislator that the question would not be answered on a pending bill.

• A version of the above oped was originally posted on the subscription outlet James Magazine Online on January 5, 2024.

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

In converted jail cell, Kemp talks tough on illegal immigrants

AJC

Feb. 19, 2018

Update: SR 85 was put on the Senate Consent Calendar for Study Committees which was approved on March 27, 2023. Vote record here (Senate vote 295).

The 2021 House version of this effort did not allow public comment and handpicked all advocate “witnesses.”

From experience, we predict a star and regular “expert witness” will be media darling, illegal alien and FWD.us lobbyist Jaime Rangel.

Did you know that Georgia apparently “has some of the country’s more burdensome occupational licensing laws and that onerous occupational licensing requirements can inhibit economic mobility, limit job prospects, and hinder small businesses?”

That is the opinion of the sponsors  of SR 85 under the Gold Dome. They are all Republicans.

• See the list of sponsors.

At the “request” of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, these GOP state senators want to create a ‘Senate Occupational Licensing Study Committee’  to decide how to “reform”occupational licensing  and “streamline processes, reduce barriers to work, and eliminate unnecessary rules and regulations.” They plan on a series of meetings to hear from the special interest community on how this can be done and maybe how other states have handled “reforming” this “onerous” system.

What, you may ask is the “onerous and burdensome” part of the Georgia occupational licensing system? In large part it refers to the fact that Georgia has laws in place that require verification of lawful presence for occupational and professional licensing. Shorter: Dismantle the laws – periodically obeyed and enforced – that are aimed at keeping black market labor out of Georgia’s workforce.

This writer has been working on the verification law, OCGA 50-36-1 since 2006.

I know because I followed this same dog and pony show study committee process when the House produced it in 2021. Then it was part of a study committee dedicated to “Innovative Ways to Maximize Global Talent.” It is the work of the partnership between the Georgia Chamber of Commerce et al and a leftist group known as the Coalition of Refugee Services. That partnership is known as Business and Immigration for Georgia or “BIG.”

• Related: The Georgia Chamber of Commerce and “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.”

A “Progressive” woman named Darlene C. Lynch works for both CRSA and the “BIG Partnership” and organized and ran the 2021 Georgia House Special Committee “Innovative ways to Maximize Global Talent” that saw three 2021 Summer and Fall meetings – with two in Georgia’s public colleges. Back then the study committee produced the impetus for a bill (HB 932) that would have eliminated the current twelve month residency period before a (public) college -bound student could qualify for instate tuition. The bill only applied to foreigners migrating into Georgia. Americans moving here from other states were not covered under that measure. They would still pay the much higher tuition rate in their first year living here. About three times as much as a student who migrated here from Afghanistan, for example.

For clarity: The goal was and is for some foreigners (example) to be able to migrate into Georgia and qualify for instate tuition the same day while Americans moving here are required to be residents for a year before that could access the same tuition rate.

• Related: For academic year 2020-2021, the average tuition & fees for Colleges in Georgia was $4,739 for in-state and $17,008 for out-of-state. Americans who relocate here would pay the higher amount in their first year of residence. Newly arrived foreigners would pay the lower amount. That is a difference of $1226.90. 

That same effort is back in today’s General Assembly in both the Senate and House. 

That 2021 special study committee was created by a resolution that passed unanimously in the House at the end of the 2021 session. Rep Wes Cantrell was the sponsor of the resolution (be sure to see all cosponsors) and served as the chairman of the agenda-driven committee that took zero pubic comment and arranged the witnesses.

Some of the agenda items from the hand-picked, pre-screened witnesses at the 2021 special committee mentioned above:

• Changing state law so as to allow foreigners to be law enforcement officers in Georgia
• Reciprocal agreements on occupational licensing rules with other states and foreign nations – put a different way, other states and nations would decide who was eligible to be receive occupational and professional licenses in Georgia.
• “Relaxing” state law that requires immigration verification of applicants for occupational and professional licensing.
• Lower tuition rates in public colleges for illegal aliens living in Georgia with DACA  status than the rate Americans and legal immigrants from other states pay.
• Removing the existing 12 month residency waiting period before new Georgia residents can access instate tuition in public colleges for refugees – but not for Americans moving here from other states.
• 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.”
• Creating a new state bureaucracy to accommodate “an office or a division of cultural and linguistic responsiveness.”

I lost track of the number of times “…the number one state for business” was tossed out.

I covered the meetings extensively for the subscription news outlet Insider Advantage Ga and also posted those reports here.

Mr. Bob Trent in St Mary’s is a subscriber to the Dustin Inman Society action alert email list (sign up!) and read about HB 131 there. Mr. Trent sent a letter to the Republican Chairman of the House Higher Education committee Rep Chuck Martin about that legislation today and copied us. He also sent it to all Republican committee members. We post his letter on the bottom.

The bill from Dalton Republican Kasey Carpenter would lower the current tuition rate for illegal aliens in Georgia with a deferral on deportation resulting from Obama’s illegal 2012 DACA proclamation. This would be done by creating a new tier of tuition called “Opportunity Tuition” and it would only be available to the illegal aliens with the illegal DACA status.

Americans and immigrants whose families came to the U.S. according to our immigration laws who live in other states would not be eligible for the greatly reduced tuition rate.

Rep Chuck Martin gave a short speech to the committee on HB 131 last week telling members, attendees and at least one reporter from the liberal AJC that “…this does not put people that are in the country illegally in front of others.” That is not true.

You can see a three minute video of Rep Martin’s speech on Youtube below. You can see some numbers on tuition as related to HB 131 and cosponsors here. You can see another letter from Bob Trent published by the Brunswick News here.

Here is Bob Trent’s letter. He copied us on each separate email sent to Martin and all of the Republican members of the committee. Thank you, sir.

________-

(received here 1:03 PM today)

Feb 9, 2023

Rep Chuck Martin

Chairman, House Higher Education Committee

Cc. All Republican committee members

Re: HB 131

Chairman Martin,

I recently watched the video record of your February 1st speech to the members of the committee on HB 131. I write to make it clear that I can see how wrong you are about the contents of the bill and to express my own outrage at your misrepresentation. While I am not a lawyer, I have more than a little experience in reading and understanding statutes and the wording of legislation that creates them. I am having a great deal of trouble accepting that you don’t understand the bill yourself.

What you told the committee members is not true. HB 131 would grant a significant reduction in college tuition costs to illegal aliens living in Georgia who are rightfully now charged out-of-state tuition. It would not reduce that tuition cost for my friend’s American grandson in Iowa who cannot afford to come to college in any of Georgia’s public universities. It would indeed put illegals in front of Americans and lawful immigrants. I think you already know that.

HB 131 is merely a contrived and slightly altered Orwellian version of HB 120 from several years ago. It is not just a bad bill, it is un-American. I am active member of the Camden County Republican Party, and I plan to inform our legislators that a vote in favor of HB 131 would create a lot of ill will here.

I am a retired Senior Special Agent of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (USINS). I have served on metropolitan area drug, and organized crime task forces for many years and have supervised special agents assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force. In addition, I spent ten years as a uniformed border patrol agent assigned to both the northern and southern borders. My final assignment was as the Assistant Director, Enforcement Training, U.S. Immigration Officer Academy, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Glynco, GA.

I wrote to you and most of your committee members in 2021 when Rep Kasey Carpenter tried to pass the instate tuition rates for illegal aliens. DACA recipients are illegal aliens. I pray HB 131 will not become law. I also hope you will apologize to the people who may believe what you said.

Robert Trent

St. Mary’s

(912…….)

 

GALEO – a partial history as published in The Islander newspaper in Glynn Co., GA.

Part 1

The Islander

October 17, 2022

The illegal alien lobby in GA: An introduction to GALEO

“California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave. They ought to go back to Europe.” — Mario Guerra Obledo, co-founder of MALDEF, on the Tom Likus radio show, 1998

To provide some insider insight into how our state government really works, here is an abbreviated outline of just one of the many corporate-funded, far left non-profits that have staff and lobbyists working against immigration enforcement around the state and in the Georgia Capitol. Space does not allow more than a partial storyline. But I cannot give readers an honest view of the innocuously named Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, known as ‘GALEO,’ without the above quote from a founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), Mario Obledo.

The CEO of the Atlanta-based GALEO is former Democrat Party fund raiser, community organizer and Biden supporter Jerry (Gerardo E.) Gonzalez. Before he was awarded with the leadership of GALEO, he was also a MALDEF lobbyist under the Gold Dome where he is known for his vitriolic outbursts at Republican legislators in committee hearings and hallways. Gonzalez and his anti-enforcement corporation have actively fought every immigration enforcement bill in the state legislature since 2003.

Gonzalez once brought the leader of the Socialist Workers party into Georgia to fight for driver’s licenses for illegal aliens.

Gonzalez boasts on the GALEO website that American luminary Jane Fonda was a GALEO “founding friend.” A leader in Atlanta’s LGBTQ community, Gonzalez is also noted for his antics at a 2011 business luncheon at the Coosa County Country Club focused on use of E-Verify to detect newly hired illegal aliens by private employers in Georgia. Gonzalez had angrily shouted at Rome’s diminutive Republican state Representative Katie Dempsey from the audience after the event and was escorted off the property by local police according to the Rome News Tribune.

I was in the state Capitol in 2011 when Capitol Police warned Gonzalez that he would be removed if he continued his hallway-screaming at GOP state Senator Renee Unterman after she spoke in favor of immigration enforcement. Jerry is not what most would call “tolerant.”

A condensed list of Gonzalez’s accomplishments running GALEO Inc. include fearlessly marching in the streets of Atlanta demanding amnesty for illegals and escorting a busload of illegal aliens into the state Senate Chamber. GALEO has actively opposed voter ID (it’s “anti-Hispanic”), English as the official language of government in Georgia (“it would be an insult to “our culture”), ICE holds for criminal illegals in Georgia jails (“…bad for communities”) and in 2011 joined the ACLU and the SPLC in a federal lawsuit to stop state implementation of HB 87, the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011” – apparently enforcement of immigration law is “anti-immigrant.”

After this writer and several other pro-enforcement citizens spoke in favor of HB 202 in the House Public Safety and Homeland Security committee in 2019, we watched as GALEO lobbyists joined the SPLC and the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) lobbyists in testifying against advancement of the bill. HB 202 would have required the Georgia Department of Corrections to publish a public, quarterly report on the number of foreigners in the state prison system, the number of that group who already are subjects of ICE detainers, their home nations and crimes committed along with the percentage of the entire prison population these aliens represent.

I write “would have” because the Republican-dominated House Rules Committee killed the bill.

Sponsors at GALEO fund raisers have included the Coca Cola Co., Telemundo, Western Union, Cox Communications (parent company of the liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper), Georgia Power, State Farm Ins. Co., Univision, Atlanta’s Kilpatrick Townsend law firm and Southwest airlines.

I watched in person sometime about 2005 as Gonzalez marched in protest of then-CNN newsman Lou Dobbs with a large group of fellow travelers carrying signs calling Dobbs a “racist” with other placards reading “THIS IS OUR CONTINENT- GO BACK TO EUROPE!” I asked some of the group with Gonzalez to where my black friends who opposed illegal immigration should return. “Africa” was the quick, loud, and defiant reply.

I am out of space for now but not close to the end of the story. Please save this edition and see here next time for more recent information on how deeply GALEO is involved in Georgia politics and how our state government really works. You won’t get this from “the news.”

Part 2.

The Islander

October 31, 2022

More on the illegal alien lobby in Georgia – GALEO Inc. and our government

In my previous column here, we began an insider’s account and history of the corporate-funded GALEO Inc. as related to our government. As promised, here is some additional information. It’s worth the reader’s time to check out the October 17, 2022 edition of The Islander if you missed part one.

The innocuously named Georgia Association of Latino and Elected Officials Corp. (GALEO) is run by former MALDEF lobbyist and Biden-supporter Jerry (Gerardo E.) Gonzalez, who is known for badgering female Republican state legislators and escorting admitted illegal aliens into the state Senate Chamber. Gonzalez has been widely quoted in liberal news media as part of the effort to erase the obvious difference between illegal aliens and real immigrants – like this writer’s adopted sister. Gonzalez says use of the word “illegal” in the term illegal immigrant/alien is akin to use of “the N-word.”

It is imperative that readers understand a large part of the names of far-left groups are intended to provide a basis for mindless marginalization of critics. Example: “You don’t agree with us? You must be “anti-Latino.” “You oppose illegal immigration? – you are against Hispanics, and you are clearly “anti-immigrant.” Those of us who have been fighting for enforcement and sanity on immigration for decades were being attacked with the shameless race-baiting and name calling long before the Democrats and the liberal media took the practice mainstream and nationwide.

A 2015 press release from community organizer Gonzalez provides important insight into part of GALEO’s dangerous agenda: “On behalf of GALEO, I would like to commend Fulton County Commissioners’ leadership and resolution urging the Fulton County Sheriff to stop honoring the ICE hold requests in order to keep families together but to also enhance public safety. We urge the Fulton County Sheriff to move forward quickly and implement the recommendation.”

The liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper refers to GALEO as a “civil rights group.”

GALEO’s Institute for Leadership (“a nationally recognized Latinx leadership program”) conducts classes every year to train future leftist community organizers – in partnership with UGA’s J.W. Fanning Institute. Really.

In 2015 then President Barack Obama nominated GALEO board member, tactician, and fundraiser Dax Lopez for a lifetime seat on the federal bench in the Northern District of Georgia. Lopez was also a DeKalb County state court judge at the time. Happily, the confirmation process was stopped by then U.S. Senator David Perdue after Perdue was presented with irrefutable facts about GALEO by the Dustin Inman Society. Thank you, Senator Perdue.

Fast forward to 2022 Georgia: Dax Lopez was appointed to the prestigious and powerful state Judicial Qualifications Commission in June. The JQC educates Georgia judges about their ethical duties and conducts investigations and hearings regarding judges’ misconduct. Really.

Readers may have assumed that Georgia politicians, especially Republican elected officials who present themselves as conservatives would avoid all things GALEO Inc.

Consider this: GALEO board member and current Democrat candidate for state senate Jason Esteves (District 6, Fulton County area) is a favorite to win the seat Nov 8th. Current Republican state Senator Jason Anavitarte (Paulding Co) was a GALEO board member about the time he ran for the state House – as a Democrat. In June 2019, Gov Brian Kemp appointed then Doraville police chief John King as Georgia’s Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner. An ecstatic Jerry Gonzalez boasted to the media that “several years ago, Chief John King served as a keynote speaker for one of GALEO’s Power Breakfasts, one of our annual fundraising events…we look forward to working alongside his leadership,” Gonzalez gushed.

In 2015 then Secretary of State Brian Kemp and Attorney General Sam Olens, Republicans both, attended the 12th annual GALEO “Power Breakfast.” Then Gov. Nathan Deal (R) was scheduled to attend but changed plans at the last minute. Another notable attendee that year was AJC political reporter and blogger Greg Bluestein who was captured in a GALEO promo photo wearing a name tag provided by one of the corporate sponsors – not the press ID that normally hangs from working reporter’s necks.

It is a sad truism that most people have no idea how their government really works. We have done a bare outline of just one corporate-funded leftist group here. Unless you already visit our websites, follow us on Facebook or me on Twitter (@DAKDIS), we are guessing you read it here first.

end

Con Ed – Georgia political history

Part two of a GALEO/Jerry Gonzalez profile in The Islander newspaper coming next Monday

In 2011, GALEO‘s Jerry Gonzalez went after a female Republican legislator, Renee Unterman, inside the Georgia Capitol. I was in the building when Capitol Police confronted Gonzalez. It is notable that this is the same time frame in which Jerry shouted at another female GOP Georgia legislator, 110 (ish)-pound Katie Dempsey, while chasing her around a Rome, GA  event designed to explain the E-Verify system and the corresponding state law requiring its use. We will save that one for later, but the Rome News-Tribune did a good job of the short story here.

We have been so busy here in Georgia lately struggling to stop pandering Republicans from advancing the far left anti-enforcement agenda that we haven’t had time to educate Georgians on the anti-borders Marxists in the corporate-funded illegal alien lobby. Here is a small view of one of these hateful leftists, GALEO’s CEO, Jerry Gonzalez. One problem with exposing the far left crazies is that lots of normal folks who only get their news from “the news” have difficulty accepting or believing  stories explaining how truly hateful the crazies really are.

We think many Georgians will be surprised to learn who helps GALEO with fundraising and operations.

I am halfway through a two-part profile of Jerry and GALEO for The Islander newspaper in SSI/Brunswick and mentioned this gem in part one. I’ll post them  here after the second part is published.

• Related: Readers write: AJC letter to the editor published October, 2020 – “Anti-enforcement GALEO is not a “civil rights group.”

Anyway, I stumbled across a page from GALEO’s website from 2011 on which Gonzalez is still seething about a speech then Senator Unterman made from the Well on the floor of the state Senate. It’s vintage Jerry. I link it below with link to the entire GALEO newsletter page.

First, a short explanation that cannot be repeated too many times: The anti-borders lobby (including most of the liberal media) is trained to always use the term “immigrants” when topic is illegal aliens – in the endless effort to make resistance and opposition to illegal immigration into “anti-immigrant.” Senator Unterman was addressing the topic of illegal aliens in Georgia during the process of debate on that year’s HB 87, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011.

Here is a link to the surviving GALEO newsletter page from 2011.

Below is the pasted image of Angry Jerry’s narration and illustration of his inner anger and hissy fit.