U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has published revised forms consistent with the final rule on the public charge ground of inadmissibility, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including USCIS, will implement on Feb. 24, 2020. Beginning Feb. 24, 2020, applicants and petitioners must use new editions of the following forms below (except in Illinois, where the rule remains enjoined by a federal court):
In addition, except in Illinois, applicants for adjustment of status subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility and the Final Rule will be required to submit Form I-944, Declaration of Self Sufficiency. Certain applicants whom USCIS invites to submit a public charge bond will use the new Form I-945, Public Charge Bond, for that purpose, and the new Form I-356, Request for Cancellation of Public Charge Bond, to request cancellation of a public charge bond. Certain classes of aliens (such as refugees, asylees, petitioners under the federal Violence Against Women Act, and certain T and U visa applicants) are exempt from the public charge ground of inadmissibility and therefore are not subject to the Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds final rule. For more information about the classes of aliens who are exempt from the final rule, please see the USCIS Policy Manual. Reporting Information About Benefits The final rule requires aliens to report certain information related to public benefits. Instructions for Form I-944 require aliens subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility to report and submit information about whether the alien applied for, was certified or approved to receive, or received certain non-cash public benefits on or after Oct. 15, 2019. Instructions for Forms I-129, I-129CW, and I-539 require the petitioner or alien to report whether the alien received public benefits since obtaining the nonimmigrant status the alien seeks to extend or change. Due to litigation-related delays in the rule’s implementation, USCIS is applying all references to Oct. 15, 2019, as though they refer to Feb. 24, 2020. Petitioners and applicants should do the same. In other words, aliens do not need to report the application, certification or approval to receive, or receipt of certain non-cash public benefits on the Form I-944 before Feb. 24, 2020. Similarly, petitioners and aliens do not need to report an alien’s receipt of any public benefits on Forms I-129, I-129CW, and I-539 if the benefits were received before Feb. 24, 2020. Postmarks and Submission Dates for Forms USCIS will accept the current edition of these forms if they are postmarked (or submitted electronically, if applicable) before Feb. 24, 2020. We will not accept them if they are postmarked on or after Feb. 24, 2020, except in Illinois. For applications and petitions that are sent by commercial courier (such as UPS, FedEx or DHL), the postmark date is the date reflected on the courier receipt. Illinois Residents USCIS is prohibited from implementing the final rule in Illinois, where it remains enjoined by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. If the injunction in Illinois is lifted, USCIS will provide additional public guidance. If you are applying for immigration benefits and live in Illinois, or are a petitioning employer in Illinois, please review the information on our website about how Illinois residents may access forms and apply in light of the injunction. Further Information USCIS has also published guidance based on the final rule in the Policy Manual. For additional information, see the Policy Alert. For more information about the final rule, see the Final Rule on Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility webpage. |
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Georgia Governor Appoints Replacement Insurance Commissioner with Ties to Anti-enforcement Immigration Lobbying Group, GALEO – Brian Kemp
Note, due to today’s funeral of our friend Billy Inman, this is a rush write up that will be expanded on soon. UPDATED AND FINAL – June 14 – 8:50AM
Yesterday, Georgia Republican Governor, Brian Kemp, announced his appointment of a metro-Atlanta police chief, John King, to be the replacement for the now-suspended elected Insurance Commissioner, Jim Beck. In Georgia, Insurance Commissioner is a statewide, constitutional office.
Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director of the corporate-funded, anti-enforcement lobbyist group, GALEO, was quick to send out a media release praising the “historic” appointment and boasting that King had assisted the activist group as keynote speaker at a GALEO breakfast fundraiser several years ago.
“Congrats to Chief King, close friend of @GALEOorg !” was the much-repeated celebratory post on the GALEO Facebook page.
Update: Since GALEO blocked me fro their Facebook page, I am not sure the above link still works. So, try this too.
Kemp’s Insurance Commissioner appointee has no background or experience in the insurance industry.
Kemp’s appointment of the GALEO-connected police chief to Insurance Commissioner comes as a shock to many Republican voters in the state. Georgia’s conservative U.S. Senator David Perdue stopped the Obama nomination of a one-time GALEO board member, Dax Lopez, to a federal bench seat in 2016 because of his concern with the GALEO relationship.
Perhaps unknown to most Republican voters, in addition to marching in the streets of Atlanta against enforcement of existing federal laws on immigration, GALEO and its director are well-known in the state Capitol for lobbying against state legislation aimed at reporting criminal aliens to federal authorities and establishing an official database of illegal aliens serving time in the state’s prison system.
GALEO lobbies against voter ID, official English and local jails honoring ICE detainers. Executive Director Gonzalez is known to verbally attack female legislators when he does not approve of speeches or positions on illegal immigration. In 2011, Gonzalez posted this angry explanation of being asked to leave the Georgia Capitol when he lashed out at state Senator Renee Unterman for a speech she made on the floor of the senate.
In 2011, GALEO’s Gonzalez was escorted out of a Rome, Georgia luncheon that featured a panel discussion on immigration when he began yelling at diminutive state Rep Katie Dempsey as reported by the Rome News Tribune.
Gonzalez is a former lobbyist for the radical MALDEF corporation. GALEO founder, former state Senator Sam Zamarippa was a MALDEF board member. MALDEF founder Mario Obledo is best remembered for his promise that “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” on the Tom Likus radio show in 1998.
According to the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than green card holders.
Kemp ran on a platform that included his now famous “I got a big truck, just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take ’em home myself,”
Kemp and a GALEO fundraiser – Advice from a liberal AJC political blogger
Republicans are learning that before he was elected governor, then Secretary of State Brian Kemp also gave GALEO a fundraising boost when he attended the annual GALEO Power Breakfast fundraiser in 2015.
On GALEO, the liberal AJC political blogger Jim Galloway informed readers today that the Republicans will need to court the illegal alien lobby group as a necessary first step to “court Hispanic votes in the future” which ignores thirty years of election results since the Republican immigration amnesty of 1986.
All this creates a simple question: Does appointee John King agree with the GALEO agenda? He is due to be sworn in in the next few weeks, somebody should ask.
Governor Brian Kemp’s office can be reached at 404-656-1776 and Brian.Kemp@georgia.gov
GALEO’s Dax Lopez passed over again despite support from Establishment Republican “influencer” Heath Garrett
A partial list of reminders of when Dax Lopez did not resign from GALEO *Updated with short audio
Conservative, pro-enforcement voters in Georgia should have an interest in understanding that Governor Kemp rejected DeKalb state court judge Dax Lopez for an appointment to higher court last week – May 31st – and who supported the appointment.
Lopez was on a short list with two other judges for a gubernatorial appointment for a promotion to a Stone Mountain Circuit Superior Court seat. On Friday, Kemp announced that Shondeana Morris, a former deputy district attorney in Fulton County and former assistant solicitor for the City of Atlanta was chosen for the position. Morris has been a State Court judge since 2017. Lopez was appointed to state court on 2010 by Republican Governor Sonny Perdue.
This was not the first time Dax Lopez has run into trouble. After intense public pressure, in 2016 Lopez was rejected by Georgia Senator David Perdue after then President Barack Obama nominated him for a lifetime seat on the federal bench in Georgia. Lopez also withdrew his name from consideration for Georgia Supreme Court when letters of objection poured into then Governor Deals’ office asking that Lopez be dropped from consideration.
Republican strategist and former Chief of Staff to Senator Johnny Isakson, Heath Garrett, reminded us that he and Senator Isakson backed Lopez for federal judge and expressed support for appointing Lopez to Superior Court on the May 13 edition of the liberal GPB radio show ‘Political Rewind. ’ Garrett explained that Dax Lopez was not only a friend but someone who Garrett has worked with. An excerpt from the radio dialogue on Lopez and the possibility of his advancement:
Heath Garrett: “And, look, full disclosure, Dax is a good friend. He’s worked with me on a number of campaigns. Uh, Senator Isakson and our organization has promoted him for that federal judgeship and backed him, uh, to the, uh, ’til the moment that he withdrew. Uh, we support him in this, as well. This is exactly the type of individual that Republicans ought to be supporting into these types of positions. And then to have others within the party come and attack him, I think is bad policy.”
Update: Audio.
Garrett was joined in support of Lopez by the pro-amnesty corporation fund by open borders billionaires, FWD.us after GALEO leader Jerry Gonzalez sent out an action alert for supporters to contact Governor Kemp and directing them to the FWD.us page to sign on to a letter to Kemp.
Garrett is described as an “influencer” by Ballotpedia. *A favorite Heath Garrett story here.
Why has Dax Lopez had so much trouble with advancement?
For eleven years Dax Lopez served as board member, treasurer, tactician and fundraiser for the corporate-funded, anti-enforcement immigration activist group the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO). He resigned from GALEO only after the Obama nomination for federal bench and the massive objections from the public, elected officials and law enforcement officers poured into the senate offices.
We think it is important to understand that Dax Lopez did not resign from GALEO when Executive Director, Jerry Gonzalez, was race-baiting and smearing legislators for passing legislation aimed at protecting Georgians from illegal immigration. And smearing rule of law activists for taking a pro-enforcement position on immigration – and attacking law enforcement officials for daring to use the federal 287(g) tool to safeguard public safety by locating and reporting to ICE criminal illegal aliens who were arrested for additional crimes and landed in the county jails.
According to the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than green card holders.
Dax Lopez has made it clear that he supports the GALEO agenda.
An abbreviated list of the GALEO agenda items pursued with corporate funding during the time Dax Lopez served on the GALEO board include:
- Leading and participating in protest marches against any immigration enforcement
- Lobbying city and county officials against honoring ICE detainer requests in local jails
- Transporting and escorting admitted illegal aliens into the senate chambers in the state Capitol
- Lobbying against voter ID
- Lobbying against increased penalties for driving without ever having been licensed
- Lobbying state legislators against use of federal tools to insure public benefits only go to eligible applicants
- Lobbying against implementation of the no-cost E-Verify system to protect jobs for legal residents
- Lobbying against legislation to make English the constitutional official language of government in Georgia
- Lobbying against state penalties for ID fraud for the purpose of illegally obtaining employment on the pretense that all of this would somehow be “anti-immigrant” and/or “anti-Hispanic.”
Not only did Dax Lopez not resign from the board of GALEO when all this was happening, but as a sitting state court Judge Dax Lopez assisted with GALEO fundraising by serving as keynote speaker at a 2011 GALEO breakfast fundraiser.
Also according to the Charlotte Observer Lopez was personally and directly active against state immigration enforcement-related legislation in a very direct manner (2008). Lopez wrote then-Gov. Sonny Perdue, requesting a gubernatorial veto of two pieces of legislation, House Bill 978 and Senate Bill 350. Both measures were judged by GALEO to adversely affect Georgia’s growing illegal alien community.
“Gov. Perdue did veto HB 978, which authorized the impounding of vehicles from operators who had no valid driver’s licenses. But he signed Senate Bill 350 into law, making a fourth conviction for driving without a license a felony.
The measure also requires police to determine the nationality of anyone jailed after being convicted for driving without a license. The Latino officials association opposed the measure, saying it would create tension between immigrants and law enforcement while making crime victims and witnesses less likely to contact police” the newspaper reported.
We think Governor Kemp did the right thing to listen to pro-enforcement Georgians and to ignore the voices of Establishment Republicans like Heath Garrett when he passed over GALEO’s Dax Lopez.
Full disclosure: The Dustin Inman Society, of which this writer is president, proudly organized opposition to state court judge Dax Lopez for federal court, for state supreme court and the most recent attempt to advance to superior court.