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Republican House Higher Education Chairman on instate tuition for illegal aliens: “We’re going to work toward something in the next legislative session…”

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GA State rep Chuck Martin, Chairman, House Higher Education Committee. Photo: Ga General Assembly.

 

Georgia state Rep Chuck Martin, Chairman of the House Higher education Committee is quoted in the liberal AJC as saying that the legislature will work on rewarding illegal aliens with instate tuition next year.

From the liberal AJC: “Chairman Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, did not motion for the committee to vote on the bill, and he said it could conflict with federal immigration law. He said he wants to wait for a U.S. Supreme Court decision on DACA that’s expected later this year.”

“We’re going to work toward something in the next legislative session” is the quote from Rep Chuck Martin concerning changing state law so that illegal aliens could access the lower tuition rate that is not available to Americans from other states like Michigan or Ohio, for example.

Martin was commenting on his committee’s lack of a vote to advance a bill from Dalton Republican Kasey Carpenter (HB 997) and several Democrat cosponsors that would have changed state law so that illegal aliens would be eligible for the much lower instate tuition rate from which they are now excluded. The story from the liberal AJC can be read here. 

My recent Dalton Daily Citizen column on Carpenter’s bill and instate tuition here.

 

 

 

Pitching a story and pleading for help – from Gov. Brian Kemp’s Georgiafornia

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Image: Dustin inman Society

Pitching a story and pleading for help

 #BigTruckTrick

Media blackout in Georgia

 

18 Feb 2020

 After campaigning on a promise to “track and deport” criminal aliens and keeping his ‘Big Truck’ for “rounding up criminal illegals” and a solid pledge on ending sanctuary jurisdictions while citing Kate Steinle and other victims, Georgia’s establishment Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has been totally mute on any part of illegal immigration since Election Day, 2018.

Image: Brian Kemp -National Review/Reuters

This, despite a growing unease by the pro-enforcement, independent voters. Here is my Brian Kemp file that includes letters to the editor and other information. The liberal media here in Georgia, including the AP and AJC have watched this happen without so much as a single note of Kemp’s betrayal on illegal immigration in a state that is home to more illegal aliens than green card holders — and more than Arizona (DHS).

Also despite the known rapes and murders committed by illegal aliens in Metro Atlanta, Kemp is still silent. He does not speak up to support the sheriffs who are fighting the corporate-funded anti-enforcement leftists in the full scale assault on 287(g)/. “Chinga La Migra!”

Add to that the fact that state law requires GA Dept. of Public Safety to have a 287(g) agreement and to train ten new officers each year in that program. Under Kemp, DPS is not 287(g) authorized.

While cutting the budget by $200 mil this year, he will not consider a $100 million annual new revenue stream because it effects black market labor in our Big Ag industry.

Now, POTUS announces his intent to send Border Patrol Agents to Atlanta to help with the sanctuary city crisis while Kemp remains silent. *Stats on criminal aliens in our prison system. POTUS endorsed Kemp – largely due to his announced “tough on criminal illegals” claim. It is obvious that President Trump is doing the job Gov Kemp will not do.

Because Republican-ruled Georgia is about where California was around the late 1990’s on this and the political corruption involved, we have taken to calling our once conservative state “Georgiafornia.”

BTW”: Georgia’s governor has a “do not call me policy.” We are pleading with a national news outlet to expose this dangerous and defiant rot. And Kemp is pushing legislation through that will “reform” the dual enrollment program in our schools in an effort to educate more workers – but he refuses to insert any verification system to filter out illegal aliens who are obviously not eligible to work.

Tom Homan, D.A. King. Feb 8, 2020. Photo: Courtesy FetchYourNews.com

We held an event here Feb 8 that featured former Acting ICE Director Tom Homan as keynote speaker and when he learned of the above and verified it with his active Georgia-resident ICE Agent friends, he took some verbal swings at Kemp on Fox and Friends and at our event. Please see photo here.

Again, despite all of this, the GA media is silent. Most Georgians are unaware of any of this.

We are pleading for help from the outside world. I have been blacklisted by the media here since the amnesty fight of 2013 and a front page profile in NY Times and a resulting interview/trial on Univision with Jorge Ramos. Local agenda-reporters went bats over that one.

D.A. King

@DAKDIS

Marietta, GA

ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com

 

 

Public Charge Inadmissibility Final Rule: Revised Forms and Updated Policy Manual Guidance – from USCIS

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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.

#Georgiafornia: Another letter to the editor on Gov. Brian Kemp’s defiance on criminal aliens – Marietta Daily Journal

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Candidate Brian Kemp in his big truck – in case he rounds up criminal illegals. Image: The Hill, 2018

Marietta Daily Journal

OPINION

Letters to the editor

Kemp’s broken campaign promise

There is a reason we quit the Georgia Republican Party — and it is centered around the fact that in a state with more illegal aliens than green card holders, illegal immigration has become a forbidden topic in an effort to court the fabled “suburban moderates” and Hispanics. This insulting and dangerous treachery is not going to drive conservative independent voters to the polls in November. Including us.

January 7, 2020

DEAR EDITOR:

In November a male foreign national with an ICE detainer was arrested in Marietta for sexually molesting two teenage boys for years starting when the boys were ages 8 and 9. Just after Christmas another alien with an ICE hold, Juan Antonio Gonzalez, was arrested by Cobb police and booked into the county jail facing six felonies including murder, aggravated assault, fleeing police and possessing a gun during the commission of a crime. We know this because the MDJ reported it. Thank you.

While Gov. Kemp is endlessly boasting of his business-first approach to governing Georgia and the “No. 1 for business” ranking from some magazine, what the MDJ and the rest of the state media are not reporting is that these two examples of vicious crimes by illegal aliens illustrate part of a broken campaign promise from Kemp.

Readers who can remember back to 2018 may recall “Brian Kemp’s Track and Deport Plan” which was a particularly detailed campaign pledge to voters aimed at illegal aliens who commit additional crimes. It went like this: “As governor, conservative businessman Brian Kemp will create a comprehensive database to track criminal aliens in Georgia. He will also update Georgia law to streamline deportations from our jails and prisons.”

We have no hope of Kemp going after the employers who draw the “undocumented” cheap labor into our state. That would upset the business donors. But at our house we have been waiting to see Kemp follow through on his tough talk on illegal alien crime. Including the two examples above, we challenge anyone to find any mention from Kemp — or the Georgia media — of the campaign promise, new laws, tracking criminal aliens or illegal alien databases.

There is a reason we quit the Georgia Republican Party — and it is centered around the fact that in a state with more illegal aliens than green card holders, illegal immigration has become a forbidden topicin an effort to court the fabled “suburban moderates” and Hispanics. This insulting and dangerous treachery is not going to drive conservative independent voters to the polls in November. Including us.

Bill Buckler

Kennesaw

Here.

What Is DACA? Is it a rule or is it prosecutorial discretion?

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DACA illegal aliens protesting for permanent t amnesty. Photo: The Independent.

Center for Immigration Studies

Janet Napolitano’s DACA memorandum states that DACA is an “exercise of our prosecutorial discretion”..Prosecutorial discretion is not judicially reviewable.”

What Is DACA?

Is it a rule or is it prosecutorial discretion?

By John Miano on November 15, 2019I previously wrote about how the elite media has totally ignored the legal issues in its coverage of the DACA case before the Supreme Court. I thought I would fill in some of the gaps left by the press’s gross malpractice here. My only real interest in DACA is over the alien employment issue. However, more mundane issues of administrative law are likely to dominate the Supreme Court’s opinions.

A key question for the Supreme Court is “What is DACA?” The New York Times answers that question this way:

The program was introduced in 2012 by President Barack Obama as a stopgap measure that would shield from deportation people who were brought into the United States as children. The status is renewable, lasting two years at a time. The program does not provide a pathway to citizenship.

Participation in the program comes with a range of benefits. Along with permission to remain in the country, recipients can also get work permits, through which many have obtained health insurance from their employers.

To make this description complete, one needs to add that the alien has to file an application and pay a $495 fee.

In any event, this describes what DACA does, not what DACA is. So what is DACA? The answer to that question should drive the case, but the parties have tried to avoid the issue.

Janet Napolitano’s DACA memorandum states that DACA is an “exercise of our prosecutorial discretion”.

Prosecutorial discretion is integral to our system of law. Assume you are riding a crowded bus in Florida and you need to get past someone in order to get off. So you tap that person lightly on the shoulder to attract their attention. In doing so you have committed the crime of battery and could go to jail absent prosecutorial discretion not to prosecute such cases. At the same time discretion can be abusive, as in the Jeffrey Epstein matter.

If DACA is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the case before the Supreme Court is simple. Prosecutorial discretion is not judicially reviewable. Faced with that established law, the University of California argued before the Supreme Court that when the prosecutorial discretion involves a large number of people it becomes reviewable. Justices Alito and Gorsuch (twice) asked the obvious question: What rule should the Supreme Court adopt to distinguish between prosecutorial discretion that is not reviewable and that which is. The answers were:

It’s a composite — in this case, it’s a composite of principles, a determination that — a categorical determination involving a substantial number of people …

and

Well [] — there — as I said, it’s a combination of factors which include the government inviting people to rely upon and make decisions based upon that policy, the provision of benefits connected with it, individuals making choices, and — and then — and the Heckler case — [] specifically.

These are non-answers. It is surprising the University of California did not prepare a proposed rule for the court to adopt.

Going back to Napolitano’s original memo, it states:

This memorandum confers no substantive right, immigration status or pathway to citizenship. Only the Congress, acting through its legislative authority, can confer these rights. It remains for the executive branch, however, to set forth policy for the exercise of discretion within the framework of the existing law.

The memo from John Morton, director of ICE, ordering the implementation of DACA in his agency said:

As there is no right to the favorable exercise of discretion by the agency, nothing in this memorandum should be construed to prohibit the apprehension, detention, or removal of any alien unlawfully in the United States or to limit the legal authority of DHS or any of its personnel to enforce federal immigration law. Similarly, this memorandum, which may be modified, superseded, or rescinded at any time without notice, is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law by any party in any administrative, civil, or criminal matter.

Napolitano as plaintiff argues that DACA created reliance on the program while her memo directing the creation of the program disclaims that is creates anything to be relied on and ICE made it clear that DACA could be rescinded at any time. (I refer to the respondents as the plaintiffs because that usage is likely clearest to most readers.)

At this point, it is time to stop calling a “spade” a “gardening tool”. DACA is not an exercise in prosecutorial discretion and Napolitano’s DACA memo was just a subterfuge. To participate one has to file an application. One has to file a $495 fee. DACA has a two-year duration. One gets a work authorization. DACA does not reflect the agency looking at individual cases and deciding whether they should be prosecuted.

The chief justice picked up on exactly that:

the whole thing was about work authorization and these other benefits. Both administrations have said they’re not going to deport people. So the deferred prosecution or deferred deportation, that’s not what the focus of the policy was. Yes, the other statutes provided that, but it was triggered by — by the memo.

The University of California correctly notes that the employment under DACA came from “under other unchallenged laws [i.e., regulations]”.

Indeed, that is because neither party had any incentive to question whether the regulations granting work authorizations were lawful. DACA recipients were never going to argue that the regulations that allowed them to work were unlawful. The immigration bureaucracy within DHS was not going to question whether its own regulations were lawful. When several states challenged the related DAPA program, the ability to confer work authorizations was addressed in an adversarial context.

This issue is one where amicus briefs stepped in. Four of the seven supporting the government raised the employment authorization issue that the government had neglected to raise. (See here, here, here, and my own, here.)

Unless the Supreme Court changes the rule that agency enforcement discretion is not judicially reviewable, the DACA rescission cannot be reviewed.

In any event, to be reviewed for being arbitrary and capricious, it has to be a reviewable agency action. That means a rule, order, license, sanction, relief, or the equivalent or denial thereof, or failure to act.

Logically, the rescission of DACA has to be the same type of agency action that created it. If it is not, that opens another string of legal argument beyond what I can address here. To that end, the courts below rejected the argument that the DACA program, created without notice and comment, had to be rescinded with notice and comment.

Which of these is the DACA? We know it is not a failure to act. License and sanction are easy ones to take off the table. An order means “a final disposition” so that one can go as well. Relief is a:

(A) grant of money, assistance, license, authority, exemption, exception, privilege, or remedy;

(B) recognition of a claim, right, immunity, privilege, exemption, or exception; or

(C) taking of other action on the application or petition of, and beneficial to, a person.

The granting of a DACA application could be relief but does not describe the DACA program.

That leaves a rule, which is:

The whole or a part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or describing the organization, procedure, or practice requirements of an agency and includes the approval or prescription for the future of rates, wages, corporate or financial structures or reorganizations thereof, prices, facilities, appliances, services or allowances therefor or of valuations, costs, or accounting, or practices bearing on any of the foregoing.

If we call DACA a “rule”, which is certainly its most accurate description, that creates a whole new set of issues. The courts differentiatebetween substantive rules and interpretive rules.

Read the rest here.

 

Criminal Arrest Histories of illegal alien DACA Applicants: USCIS

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DACA illegal aliens protest in front of U.S. Supreme Court, November 12, 2019. Image: Harper’s Bazaar
From USCIS
New Data Shows Criminal Arrest Histories of DACA Requestors

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released new data (PDF, 140 KB) regarding arrests and apprehensions among the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) requestor population. The data contains both criminal and civil information of those approved and denied under DACA.

The findings are part of a continuous release of information by the agency to its website on both the DACA policy and its requestor population; including most recently, data regarding ages and education levels of DACA recipients. The new data relates to arrests and apprehensions, which do not necessarily result in actual convictions.

Among the findings of the release:

  • Almost 8-percent of total DACA requestors (59,786 individuals) had arrest records as of the date the systems were queried, which included offenses such as assault and battery, rape, murder, and drunk driving, among others.  “Requestors” includes individuals approved and denied DACA.
  • Of those individuals whose DACA requests were approved and had one or more arrests or apprehensions, 53,792 were arrested or apprehended prior to their most recent approval.
  • Approximately 13-percent (7,814) of approved DACA requestors with an arrest had an arrest after their grant was approved and prior to renewal.
  • 54.8-percent of DACA requestors with more than one arrest (17,079) most recently had a DACA case status of “approved” as of the date the systems were queried.
  • 199 individuals who requested DACA had 10 or more arrests. Of those, 51 most recently had DACA case status of “approved,” as of the date the systems were queried.
  • Of the total 888,765 DACA requestors, 797,297 had no arrests or apprehensions, and 710, 842 were approved.

“In striving for transparency, USCIS has released a variety of information on both the DACA policy and its population as part of a continued effort to keep the public informed. As such, criminal activity of DACA requestors has long been the subject of widespread discussion and speculation, with a regrettable lack of available data until now. The truth is that we let those with criminal arrests for sexually assaulting a minor, kidnapping, human trafficking, child pornography, or even murder be provided protection from removal. Yet the courts rule that we are unable to change this policy – even though those with criminal histories are getting through the system and permitted to remain in the country, despite having a high number of arrests for any types of crimes before or after receiving DACA protection,” said USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna.

“There are legitimate concerns over a portion of the population who have requested, and been granted, the privilege of a temporary stay of their removal under the illegal DACA policy. Until it can be repealed, this criminality data only reinforces the need for its continued review and scrutiny, which was imposed unilaterally by the Obama administration in circumventing Congress. It’s our hope that it helps the public and policy makers better understand the reality of the entire DACA population,” Cissna added.

Under current DACA policy, an individual may be considered for DACA if he or she has not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more “non-significant” misdemeanors not arising out of the same act, omission, or scheme of misconduct, or does not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety. Numbers of arrests alone do not necessarily disqualify a person from receiving DACA as a matter of discretion.

 

Last Reviewed/Updated:

In 2018, the number of federal arrests of Mexican citizens exceeded the number of federal arrests of U.S. citizens – Bureau of Justice Statistics report

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Image: Bureau of Justice Statistic

Report: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Federal Justice System, 1998-2018

 

 

  

    • In 1998, 63% of all federal arrests were of U.S. citizens; in 2018, 64% of all federal arrests were of non-U.S. citizens.
    • Non-U.S. citizens, who make up 7% of the U.S. population (per the U.S. Census Bureau for 2017), accounted for 15% of all federal arrests and 15% of prosecutions in U.S. district court for non-immigration crimes in 2018.
    • The portion of total federal arrests that took place in the five judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border almost doubled from 1998 (33%) to 2018 (65%).
    • Ninety-five percent of the increase in federal arrests across 20 years was due to immigration offenses.
    • In 2018, 90% of suspects arrested for federal immigration crimes were male; 10% were female.

 

 

Fugitives in the open: Illegal aliens with ankle monitors from previous captures were working in Mississippi processing plant

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Photo: Twitter/AP

“In some instances, immigrants were released from detention and outfitted with ankle monitors while awaiting deportation proceedings. Authorities tracking their GPS coordinates were able to see they were coming and going from Mississippi food processing plants.”

Over more than a decade, hundreds of undocumented workers across the country told federal officials they worked at food processing plants in Mississippi.

In some instances, immigrants were released from detention and outfitted with ankle monitors while awaiting deportation proceedings. Authorities tracking their GPS coordinates were able to see they were coming and going from Mississippi food processing plants.

On Wednesday, hundreds of immigration officials descended on seven Mississippi plants owned by five companies — Peco Foods, Koch Foods, PH Food, Pearl River Foods and MP Food Inc. They are suspected of “willfully and unlawfully employing” undocumented workers, recently unsealed search warrants say.

Workers reported hearing the roar of helicopters and seeing agents round up mostly Latino workers for questioning. Many wept as they waved goodbye to their family and friends being carted away on buses for processing.

It was the largest immigration sting of its kind in more than a decade. A total of 680 people were arrested. Of those, about 300 were released the same day, officials said. Those who remain in detention are being held in a ICE facility in Louisiana.

As for the companies, no fines or arrests have taken place, though federal officials say investigations into the companies are ongoing.

‘A safe place’: School districts reaching out after more than 150 students were absent

After ICE raids: How to help or get help in Mississippi

What did federal authorities know? How long have they been monitoring these companies?

Unsealed court records provide the first look into how federal authorities planned what officials have described as the largest single-state workplace enforcement action in the country, ever.

ICE filed for search warrants Monday at the seven plants. The records had been sealed until U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Anderson approved a motion Thursday to open them.

Affidavits by ICE Special Agent Anthony Williams Jr. revealed that, for years, temporarily detained undocumented workers — from as far as El Paso, Texas, and Yuma, Arizona — had employment cards from plants in Mississippi. He also said electronic ankle monitoring, surveillance and a confidential informant played a part in where raids would be targeted. More from the Clarion Ledger here.

 

 

State E-Verify law a challenge for illegal aliens says director of corporate-sponsored, restricted Latino group

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Image: Latino Community Fund

 

 

 

 

 

But some illegals already receive public benefits in Georgia

 

D.A. King

From the “that’s pretty much the point” department: Georgia’s E-Verify law represents a challenge for illegal aliens who want to open a business and be more visible in Georgia. This critical analysis from the executive director and founder of an ethnic-based Decatur group supported by Coca-Cola, Georgia Power and UGA’s Small Business Development Center.

Gigi Pedraza. Image: Saporta Report

 

Gigi Pedraza, head of the Latino Community Fund, was featured in the Saporta Report last month outlining the need “to understand the needs of Latinx Entrepreneurs” and highlighting a study her organization put out last year.

“Undocumented Latinos and other undocumented immigrants face perhaps the biggest of these challenges before they are even able to start a business. In 2011, the state Legislature passed House Bill 87, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act. The law required evidence that an applicant for a business license or other documents needed to run a business has approval to use the federal work authorization program” wrote Pedraza. She means the no-cost E-Verify system.

She went on to incorrectly explain to Saporta’s readers that use of E-Verify somehow creates a citizenship requirement for business owners. It doesn’t.

Pedraza in the Saporta Report: “Essentially, this instituted a citizenship requirement for Georgia business owners to operate lawfully, pay taxes and act as a visible part of their local communities and economies.”

Employers need not be U.S. citizens to be E-Verify users, but there is a requirement for a Social Security Number to register as a user, making it difficult for an illegal alien to receive authorization to use a federal system designed to help keep black market labor out of the workforce and to protect wages for legal workers.

Unsurprisingly, a goal for the Pedraza’s enterprise is to start a legislative process to end the state’s E-Verify requirement to obtain a business license: “Reducing this burdensome licensing restriction would allow additional Latino businesses to start and flourish, powered by individuals who call Georgia home and have dedicated most of their lives to build and contribute to this country” wrote Pedraza.

There is more than one legal hurdle for the illegal aliens

Pedraza ignored the fact that Georgia law separate from E-Verify statutes also requires applicants for public benefits to indicate on an affidavit under penalty of false swearing that they are eligible for the benefits due to U.S. citizenship or lawful presence. Business licenses are public benefits under the law.

OCGA 50-36-1 (4) (b): “Except as provided in subsection (d) of this Code section or where exempted by federal law, every agency or political subdivision shall verify the lawful presence in the United States under federal immigration law of any applicant for public benefits.”

 To accomplish her stated goal of making it easier for illegal aliens to legally operate a business, Pedraza will need to begin the lobbying process to dump this hard-fought safeguard as well.

Illegal aliens do receive public benefits in Georgia

An added educational note, a March appellate court decision confirmed that DACA recipients do not have lawful presence and are inadmissible and deportable. Simply put, they are illegal aliens. Nevertheless, Georgia issues a variety of public benefits to DACA recipients including unemployment benefits.

New to this writer, the openly restricted Latino Community Fund requires that other non-profit organizations meet two of the following descriptions for membership:

* Be Latino-led (Executive Director or CEO)
* Be governed by a majority Latino board of directors
* Serve a majority Latino client population (here).

Pedraza’s  guest column “Breaking down barriers for Latino Entrepreneurs” can be seen here. The study can be seen here

An experienced word of warning to readers who may dismiss the chances of any legislative action in the Republican-ruled state legislature to abolish the E-Verify law or the public benefits law – don’t.

The combined pressure from business donors, the mantra of “rolling back restrictions on small business”, the possibility of increasing the “great state for business” reputation by intentionally making life easier for illegal alien-run ventures and the ridiculous premise offered by Establishment Republican “influencers” that additional pandering would result in more Hispanic votes for the GOP at election time is powerful fodder under the Gold Dome.

Note: A condensed version of this column was posted on the subscription website Insider Advantage Georgia on Wednesday, July 17, 2019. We are grateful for the space.

 

Georgia Governor Appoints Replacement Insurance Commissioner with Ties to Anti-enforcement Immigration Lobbying Group, GALEO – Brian Kemp

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Left: Newly appointed Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King with GALEO Executive Director, Jerry Gonzalez. Image: Facebook, GALEO.org

 

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.

DeKalb State Court Judge Dax Lopez. Image: Daily Signal

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.

GALEO online poster opposing 2018 legislation to improve reporting of illegal aliens to federal authorities

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.

State rep. Katie Dempsey. Image: Georgia General Assembly

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