Education for state legislators
- Update, 8:15PM: After posting this today and sending it to the Republican members of the Senate and House, I learned there was a (surprise!) 2:30 PM hearing on the below bill. I hurried to Downtown Atlanta and made it to the hearing room before the Senate Education and Youth committee meeting began. I was the first person to sign up to speak on the bill. The chairman of the committee is Senator Clint Dixon, Republican, Buford. Knowing that I would spill the beans on the bill, Dixon began calling names to speak from the bottom of the list.
Sen Clint Dixon - When he got to number two on the list, Dixon told the room “I know the audience is not going to like this. We are under extreme time constraints and we are going to end the public comment now.”
- I was prevented from speaking and offering an experienced and educated analysis of the phony immigration part of the legislation. I was cancelled by the Chamber of Commerce Republicans. The Republicans passed out the bill. Senator Ed Setzler made the motion “do pass.” It should be noted that Dolezal was careful to avoid any mention of illegal immigration in his presentation.
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We judge the bill to be un-American in its current iteration.
Georgia Promise Scholarship Act (2023 version) Senator Greg Dolezal, lead sponsor. See cosponsors here.
SB 233 LC 49 1349
Note: All of the obvious problems outlined below can easily be resolved by using already offered language that clearly and openly limits benefits for, access to and authority over the use of state funds for K-12 scholarships to U.S. citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents (green card holders) who have submitted documents proving that status. I was asked for this draft language in 2022 and sent it to senior House members then. I received no reply. I have since traded emails with Sen. Greg Dolezal on that draft language and know that he has read it and finds “language like this “appropriate.” He has declined to respond to two requests for a meeting. Coming soon: Sen. Dolezal and his campaign promises on “sanctuary cities.” dak
- Related: New “school choice” bill in GA Senate would provide state benefit to Biden’s illegally paroled, inadmissible “migrants” – formerly known as “illegal aliens” SB 233
State funds are deposited into a consumer directed account on behalf of a participating student to be used for qualified expenses and distribution is ordered by “parents.”
“Parents”
Parents of the participating K-12 student submit the application (line 84) for the state to send funds to an account set up for the student and ‘promise’ (line 77) to only use the state funds for qualified services – which are basic education of the student.
“Parents” include legal guardians, custodian or “other person” (line 30) with legal authority to act on behalf of the student of the student living in Georgia.
The above definition of “parent” does not exclude illegal aliens.
Georgia media does not usually report that the Biden administration has been shipping “UACs” into the interior of the United States and puts them into the custody of illegal aliens – including in Georgia.
- Related: Fake Families: “Overrun, How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History
According to the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, only six states have a larger population of illegal aliens than Georgia (table 3, page 5). The anti-enforcement GBPI has passed on stats that show we have more illegal aliens than green card holders (pie chart).
The above fact should point out the very real likelihood that if this all becomes law, we will watch as authority to request $6000.00 per year in taxpayer dollars is turned over to illegal alien ‘parents’ who have been awarded the power to order up dispersal of those funds with the ‘promise’ it will be done within the guidelines of the Act.
This brings up another “Act.” The federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that illegal aliens defy. Here we also mention a long list of state and federal laws that illegal aliens violate literally every day – including employment laws and use of false or stolen ID and Social Security numbers. There is no reason to believe the illegal aliens won’t happily take advantage of the lack of security in the current version of SB 233.
Oversight
“Parents” also make up a review committee (line 193) that would have authority to determine the validity of expenses paid for by the “parents” on behalf of the student. Again, we see the likelihood that illegal aliens could easily be deciding what constitutes an eligible expense and how state funds are used.
“Students”
A “student” is eligible if his “parents” reside in Georgia (line 73).
Considering illegal immigration, when we drill down through the bill’s references to various code sections students are ineligible (lines 74-76) for the new state benefit under the same guidelines created for Title IX circa 1972 when the world, the U.S. and Georgia were very different places. Title IV noncitizen eligibility here.
The fact that the Biden administration has compromised the integrity of the Title IX eligibility guidelines should not be a reason for Georgia legislators to do join in and do the same in the name of “school choice.”
- Fact on parole: “While individuals who receive a grant of parole are allowed to enter the United States, they are not provided with an immigration status nor are they formally “admitted” into the country for purposes of immigration law.”
These parameters make hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens from all over the planet who have been illegally granted blanket “parole” by the Biden administration and herded into the U.S. eligible for the proposed “Promise Scholarship” benefits provided by Georgia taxpayers in this version of “school choice” in SB 233. The Biden “parole” scam is ongoing.
As is, SB 233 creates the scenario in which illegal alien/paroled parents can be in charge of dispersing state funds and determination of the eligible use of those funds for payment of private school tuition for paroled (otherwise illegal alien students) eligible.
Statistics taken from official Border patrol reports show that in the period Oct 2021 – Sept 2022 (FY 2022) about 380,000 otherwise illegal aliens were released into the nation under Biden’s (illegal) parole program. Immigration watchdogs are asking “How Long Does Biden’s DHS Wait to Put Paroled Border Migrants into Removal Proceedings?” (see Parole `+ATD in table).
I am working on cobbling numbers together to reflect the number of “parolees” created by Biden from what were previously known as “illegal aliens” in the first five months of FY 2023, but we anticipate those numbers will be similar to FY 2022. Georgia is already a very popular state for illegal “migration.” Offering private school tuition to paroled parents and students will only increase that attractiveness.
Twenty GOP states are challenging Biden’s illegal border parole hustle in a Texas federal court – GA is not one of them.
Appropriations (?)
Unless I have overlooked it, there is no mention of any caps, limits or “subject to appropriations” disclaimer in the bill. This was not the case in some previous measures aimed at “school choice.” It can be assumed that the intent and expectation is that the state budget will always include provisions to accommodate funding for all eligible students.
At least one previous bill included a lottery system to determine winners and losers in the event there was not sufficient funding to benefit all eligible applicants. We hope this possibility is made clear to legislators and voters as that scenario creates a possibility of illegal alien ‘parents’ and or paroled students winning that lottery while American students and parents watch them access state benefits that are unavailable to the citizen families.
Updated, March 2, 2023, 5:45 PM. Removed my personal opinion of Senators Dixon and Dolezal. Added copy on top that SB 233 did not come out of Rules committee.
