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Martha Zoller offers her opinion on the correct waiting period for amnesty eligibility *Updated

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Republican radio show host Martha Zoller also says illegal immigration has increased so much that Brian Kemp “had to change his tactics” and abandon his campaign promises on “criminal illegals” and ending sanctuary cities.

There she goes again.

As I seldom listen and she does not offer a podcast of her full show (it’s limited to “show clips“) I have no way of knowing how often Republican radio show host Martha Zoller promotes amnesty for illegal aliens. But every so often I still tune in to her morning show to see what she is telling her loyal listeners. Even if it’s only for a few minutes.

Yesterday (Oct. 24, 2023) was one of those mornings. I listened for less than fifteen minutes. In that time I heard Martha tell a listener (I think it was a response to a text message) that she was opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens who had arrived in the U.S. in the last three years. Martha said twenty years was closer to her preferred waiting period for illegals to be eligible for being allowed “to stay” in the U.S.

My assumption is that this “let them stay” concept would include a path to citizenship.

Maybe Martha will offer up an estimate of how many potential Democrat voters would be created by an official 21st century amnesty.

Reagan’s (failed)”one-time” amnesty of 1986 didn’t seem to produce many GOP voters in the Hispanic community. A promise of increasing the number of Hispanic Republican voters is one of the talking points in the periodic “yes to immigration reform” spiel from the Chamber of Commerce wing of the GOP.

Below is a pasted version of a 2017 post from the original DIS website on that matter:

After the “one time” Reagan amnesty of 1986, Hispanics rewarded Republican George H.W. Bush with 30% of their vote – Trump got 29% in 2016.

Clinton finished the San Diego border fence in 1994 and still got 72% of the Hispanic vote in 1996. It doesn’t look like capitulation pays off for Republicans or that enforcement costs Democrats.

Stats from LatinoVoteMatters.org :”If one hopes to analyze current trends and anticipate where we’re going, one must understand where we’ve been. Below, you’ll find the Hispanic voter breakdown for presidential elections from 1980 to present.”

1980 Jimmy Carter, 56% Ronald Reagan, 35% +21
1984 Walter Mondale, 61% Ronald Reagan, 37% +24
1988 Michael Dukakis, 69% George H.W. Bush, 30% +39
1992 Bill Clinton, 61% George H.W. Bush, 25% +36
1996 Bill Clinton, 72% Bob Dole, 21% +51
2000 Al Gore, 62% George W. Bush, 35% +27
2004 John Kerry, 58% George W. Bush, 40% +18
2008 Barack Obama, 67% John McCain, 31% +36
2012 Barack Obama, 71% Mitt Romney, 27% +44

*2016 Hillary Clinton, 65% Donald Trump, 29% +36

*According to widely accepted estimates in the liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution and the conservative National Review.

And doesn’t this mean that Amnesty-en-Espanol John McCain and “Build the Wall” Donald Trump had the same spread?

Huh…

 

Georgia Chamber of Commerce DEI summit & some anti-enforcement history #EVerify

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The Georgia Chamber of Commerce is scheduled to host their annual Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion “summit” in Atlanta on November 1.

Georgia Chamber of Commerce

Regardless of where I go, I still meet people who think “the Chamber of Commerce” is somehow a conservative operation. Those of us who work for immigration enforcement legislation under the Gold Dome in Atlanta know otherwise. Theirs is more like a “dollar first” world view.

Example? In 2011, when this writer worked on passing a bill (HB 87) that, among other things, required most private employers to swear they are using the no-cost federal E-Verify system to reduce use of black-market labor, it was the Georgia Chamber of Commerce that had the loudest and most effective lobbying voice against the overall goal.

Illegal employment is the main driver of illegal immigration.

This brings to mind the time David Raynor, then a lobbyist for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, told the state House Judiciary (non-civil) Committee, where HB 87 was being heard, that the no-cost E-Verify system had an error rate of “50 percent all the way up to in excess of 80 percent.” We happen to have archived video of that testimony.

This writer had long before provided committee members with an assortment of government and private sources for facts on E-Verify and warned them of the likelihood of an anti-enforcement effort to spin a preposterous yarn about accuracy. Raynor didn’t let us down. It was difficult to keep a straight face when I followed Raynor as the next witness in the hearing on HB 87.

The liberal AJC newspaper had a “Georgia PolitiFact” column going at the time. They chose to use Raynor’s attempted hustle in a “fact check” – and in a soft-pedaled report put the overall error rate at “2.3 to 5.7 percent.” The AJC then rated Raynor’s whopper as “half-true.”

David Raynor

Raynor is now Chief Public Affairs Officer at the GA Chamber. He oversees all lobbying activity, public policy development, and political engagement efforts. We assume that includes providing concocted “facts” to lobbyists under him to use in committee against legislation they are told to kill or gut.

The bill passed despite the Georgia Chamber and is now state law. Enforcement and sanctions for violations is a far different story and a topic for another day.

Readers can go to the Chamber’s website and see for themselves, but the nutshell outline for the coming DEI event is that Victor Terry, Chief Diversity Officer at State Farm Insurance will be Keynote speaker. It helps to know that State Farm Ins. Co has supported the anti-enforcement work of GALEO Inc., a far-left ethnic hustler group that boasts Jane Fonda as a “Founding Friend” that I sometimes highlight here.

GALEO also fought passage of HB 87 and after it became law, went to federal court teamed up with the discredited and disgraced SPLC in a mostly failed attempt to negate parts of what they referred to as an “anti-business” and “anti-immigrant” statute.

Here are some of the discussion topics at the Georgia Chamber’s DEI summit:

  •  “Maximizing the Diversity in your business, so you can be included in Government Contracts”

Moderator: Sharna Barnes, CEO, Complete Contract Consulting Inc.

  • Driving Accountability in Diverse Spend w/Fortune 500 Companies

Moderator: Myra Reeves, Director, DEI Associate Engagement, The Home Depot, Inc.

  • Raising Awareness of Microaggressions and Unconscious Bias

Moderator: Sonia Toson, Interim Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, Kennesaw State University.

Toson will lead a discussion on “microaggressions” that she says “affect everyone.” “We must explore our own biases to become aware of them.  In this segment, our speakers will provide solutions to actively combat microaggressions to positively impact our workplaces.”

I am guessing here but we should probably not expect mention of the thousands of American students brainwashed by our university system who are demonstrating in support of the murderous Hamas beheadings of Jewish babies in Israel. “Microaggerssions” indeed.

  • Supporting Gender Identity and Expression

Moderator: Chris Lugo, Executive Director, OUT Georgia Business Alliance

Space here does not allow me to list the many well-known corporate sponsors of the Chamber’s summit in Atlanta, but we hope you will take a few minutes to see that very long, educational list for yourself here.

___

A version of the above column is published in the October 23, 2023 The Islander newspaper, in Glynn Co. Georgia.

‘Georgia Match’ and the need for factual reporting on Hope

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  • More than 3000 illegals graduate from Georgia high schools every year. Illegal aliens are not eligible for the Hope Scholarship – not “all students” or all graduates. 

 

Gov. Brain Kemp announced the new “Georgia Match” program yesterday and various news outlets are busy reporting on the details of the new system for assuring high school students they have a college seat in the state’s public post secondary schools.

We hope they get it right when they tell people about the Hope Scholarship. And we hope all concerned note that somewhere north of 3000 illegal aliens graduate from Georgia’s high schools each year according to a now six-year-old stats from the New Yorker. 

We assume that number is significantly higher now that Biden has invited 4-5 million illegals into the remains of the Republic.

Gov. Brian Kemp

Here is an example of our concern from reporter Jeff Amy at the Associated Press today in a story headlined “You’re admitted: Georgia to urge high school seniors to apply in streamlined process.”

At the end of Amy’s report is the following information on the Hope Scholarship:

“That’s where Georgia officials say the state’s HOPE Scholarship and HOPE Grant programs can help. The grant program pays for two years of technical college tuition for any high school graduate, as long as the student maintains a C average. There is also enhanced aid for students studying in career fields the state classifies as being in high demand.

The scholarship program pays for four years of college or university tuition for any student who graduates high school with a B average and maintains a B average in college (italics mine).

AP reporter Jeff Amy

Amy and the left wing AP are telling people that Hope pays for “any high school graduate” and “any student.” I’ve seen similar wording in other reports

The Georgia Student Finance Commission has different “facts” on eligibility for the Hope scholarship. It’s first on the list of “basic requirements” – students must “meet U.S. citizenship or eligible non-citizen requirements.”

What are those requirements?

“DACA recipients and undocumented students are ineligible for state and federal financial aid including the Pell Grant, loans and the Zell Miller & HOPE Scholarships” says the University of North Georgia resources page. We note the redundancy of their “DACA recipients and undocumented students.”

Shorter: Illegal aliens are not eligible for the Hope Scholarship. That includes the more than 3000 illegals graduate from Georgia high schools every year. Regardless of grades, not all high school graduates are eligible for Hope. Somebody his wrong here or we are missing something not at all obvious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martha Zoller on politician’s campaign promises

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I was able to listen to Martha’s show for about 15 minutes this morning. She did not disappoint. Yowsa.

In a discussion apparently revolving around the un-doing of the U.S. House Speaker yesterday, I heard Martha tell a caller, ( I think she framed it in a reference to Gov Kemp and his abandoned pledge on ending sanctuary cities in GA and creating a public database of criminal illegals and to “update Ga law to streamline deportations from our jails and prisons” passing legislation to ) that “No politician ever keeps all of their promises. You have to look at their whole body of work.”

Gov. Brian Kemp

I winced at her obvious effort to convince her loyal and trusting listeners to ignore the fact that in addition to not keeping his word on illegal aliens in our state, Kemp is in violation of his oath office when he refuses to enforce the existing state laws on the above, one of which he passed out of his Senate Public safety Committee when he was chairman as a state senator in 2006 (SB 529).

A few minutes later I heard Martha end a conversation with a caller who was upset about broken promises by elected officials by saying “we gotta start keeping (maybe she said “making”) people accountable.”

In the next segment, I heard part of a segment in which Martha was interviewing GA Congressman Andrew Clyde, again pertaining to the Speaker issue in Washington. Clyde, a strong conservative, made it clear that in his mind (dealing Kevin McCarthy in the House) that “trust is a series of promises kept…” Unlike her own remarks made between guests, that quote is available in Zoller’s show clips. Clyde’s observation on promises is at 4:44 on the SoundCloud bar.

 

 

Incoming illegal aliens may have a Florida accent – Keep choppin’! #BrianKemp

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Gov. Brian Kemp

“Along with ending “sanctuary city” policies, readers may remember that Kemp pledged to crack down on “criminal illegals” when he ran for governor in 2018. He didn’t.”

For someone who has been fighting illegal immigration in Georgia for twenty years, the endless news stories coming out of Florida regarding Gov DeSantis’ “toughest state illegal immigration law in the nation” crackdown on that organized crime is both familiar and sadly entertaining. It seems that the vast corporate-funded, anti-enforcement media lobby is crazed over the promise of future enforcement.

Headline after headline screams that “the undocumented” are leaving Florida out of fear.

“Migrant Workers Flee Florida as New Immigration Law Takes Effect” from the July 3 edition of the Wall St. Journal is but one example.

In a statement, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said the new Florida provisions could prompt “discrimination and racial profiling, and give rise to hostile environments, intimidation” and (wait for it)…”hate crimes.”

“Criminalization is not the way to resolve the phenomenon of undocumented migration,” the Mexican government said, describing the new measures as driven by xenophobia and white nationalism.”  Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged U.S. Latino voters to reject DeSantis, accusing the politician of trying to win votes at the expense of illegal aliens (he may have said “migrants,”…but “tomato” –  “tomahto”).

This entire scenario is well-known to this writer because I recall when Georgia was passing “the toughest state illegal immigration law in the nation…” – multiple times. In 2006 GOP legislators passed the thirteen-page SB 529, “Georgia Security & Immigration Compliance Act.” Then-Gov Sonny Perdue signed it into law and was reelected the same year.

To get started the bill had to pass out of the Senate Public Safety Committee where a state Senator named Brian Kemp was the tough-talking Republican chairman.

Kemp told the liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper then that “many Georgians are “fed up” with illegal immigration.” He was a candidate for Agriculture Commissioner at the time.

In 2011 Gold Dome Republicans put in place the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011” – HB 87. Twenty-three sections of enforcement promises in twenty-seven pages. Today, Georgia is home to more illegals that Arizona.

In both above years a different Mexican president offered up the same race-baiting goop attacking our Georgia legislation we are now hearing about Florida’s.

Each time we saw the same panicked news stories we now see from Florida courtesy of the outraged liberal media.

The head of metro-Atlanta’s rabidly anti-enforcement “Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights” (GLAHR), Mexican immigrant Adelina Nicholls, recently told the AJC that she fears another move towards enforcement promises here. “It wouldn’t surprise me if some provisions of the law or even the whole thing was introduced at the next legislative session here in the state of Georgia,” she said.

Good one. Nichols must be having a little fun with the AJC reporter. She has nothing to fear here. The Republicans who run the state legislature are going in the other direction. Examples? HB 136, a simple, short bill that would merely require a quarterly, public count of the number of illegal aliens in the state prison system and reveal their crimes is stuck in the Republican-led House committee process.

In February all but one of the Republicans in the state senate voted to provide taxpayer-funded Adult Education to illegal aliens. Pushed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, there is an endless effort to provide a greatly reduced taxpayer-financed instate tuition opportunity to illegal aliens that is not available to Americans who live in other states.

Much if not most of the laws already put in place here are treated as optional by the people elected to enforcement them. Kemp is allowed to be silent on illegal immigration in Georgia by dutiful and obedient dollar-first GOP voters who would rather silently watch their countrymen be harmed by criminal illegal aliens than risk accusations of being “anti-Kemp.” It’s not just the Rule of Law that is on sale.

Along with ending “sanctuary city” policies, readers may remember that Kemp pledged to crack down on “criminal illegals” when he ran for governor in 2018. He didn’t.

  • Related: Sanctuary Georgia: Another law that is ignored on “criminal illegals”

The illegal aliens flowing out of Florida are reminders that even the threat of enforcement results in their outward migration. Where will they go? Georgians should expect an influx of newly arrived illegals with a Florida accent.

A version of this column is published in the July 10, 2023 edition of The Islander newspaper in Glynn County, GA.

Dog & Pony Show prediction: SR 85 – Senate Republicans to consider ways to reduce pesky “onerous and burdensome” occupational licensing practices

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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.

Jaime Rangel, illegal alien and FWD.us lobbyist in the GA Capitol.

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.

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.”
Darlene C. Lynch of “BIG’. Photo, Dustin Inman Society

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.

 

 

School choice – SB 233: GOP lawmakers ignore warnings on attention to immigration status of ‘parents’ at their political peril — Repost and updated

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UPDATE: March 14, 2024. The House passed SB 233 today with no debate on or attention to the below. Several House embers told us they “had to vote for school choice…” despite understanding that it will reward and encourage illegal imigtrati9on into Georgia. By our math, this is exactly three weeks after the murder of Laken Riley, allegedly by an illegal alien who migrated to our state.

Heads up to House Republicans: Designating the Promise Scholarship as a “state grant” would require applicants (“parents”) to participate in the verification of lawful presence process in OCGA 50-36-1 and is an easy, two line solution to the very real problem.

Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens have been Georgia residents for more than a year.

Update: March 31, 2023 11:00 PM: SB 233 failed in the House, a vote to reconsider passed and the has been put back on the General Calendar for next year. See the Breitbart story “Georgia blocks plan to open K-12 grants to illegals.”

Update: March 28, 2023, 10:50 AM: GOP Gov Brian Kemp has publicly endorsed the bill and is now urging the House to pass it. There is still no language excluding illegal alien “parents” from the oversight process.

Update: March 24, 6:22 AM: The House took up this bill yesterday but ended up voting 95-70 (see “House vote 293”) to table the measure – after Gov Kemp sent word through a floor leader that he supports the school choice legislation as is. *Notable that 13 members were excused from voting.

Rep Will Wade offered a plea for passage from the Well before Pro Tem Jan Jones moved to table the illegal alien -friendly measure. Two minute audio from House floor:

__________________________

Most conservative Georgians do not want illegal aliens to be able to apply for any non-fed mandated benefit, direct the destination of state funds, be reimbursed for out-of pocket expenses, or serve on a “Parent Review” committee that determines what expenses are eligible to be considered as a “qualified education expense” under state law.

Despite more than a year of warnings to Republican lawmakers under the Gold Dome, language in the pending “school choice” bill does not require “parents” (who make the application to begin the proposed new state grant process) to be U.S. citizens or have legal immigration status.

  • Best solution: Amend the bill to require “parents” to be verified as U.S citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents (green card holders) as is the well-disguised requirement for student eligibility.
  • A weaker (partial) solution: Clearly designate the scholarship as a “state grant’ in the bill and add sentence that requires verification under OCGA 50-36-1.

(Beginners guide: We think the “Promise Scholarship” should be regarded as a “state grant” and thereby a public benefit under Georgia’s verification of lawful presence law OCGA 50-36-1. We have repeatedly urged all concerned to make that clear (or not) in the bill. If it is a state grant, the applicant (the “parent”) would be required to complete the prescribed verification process to swear to “lawful presence.”)

Below is another line-by-line write up on part of the role of “parents” in the administration of and participation in the proposed new state “Promise Scholarship.”

  • UPDATE Nov. 16, 2023, 9:05 AM The current version of SB 233 is LC 49 1473 according to the House Clerk just now.

Modified structure.

SB 233 As amended by the House Education committee

* LC 49 1450

See also LC 49 1458S and LC 1458S/hrcs (lines may not exactly match in later versions).

Line #

37  ‘Parent‘ means a biological parent, legal guardian, custodian, or other person with

38 legal authority to act on behalf of a student.

 

64  (G) Other expenses authorized by the State Board of Education or the commission; or

65  (H) Individual education expenses authorized by a majority of the parent review

66  committee provided for in Code Section 20-2B-6.

 

72  (a) A student shall qualify for a promise scholarship account under this chapter if:

73  (1) The student’s parent resides within Georgia and has been a Georgia resident for at

74  least one year; provided, however, that the one-year requirement shall not apply if the

75  student’s parent is an active duty military service member stationed in Georgia within the

76  previous year;

 

201  (3) The commission shall develop a system for parents to direct account funds to

202  participating schools and service providers by electronic funds transfer, automated

203 clearing-house transfer, or another system that the commission finds to be commercially

204 viable, cost-effective, and easy for parents of participating students to use. The

205 commission shall not adopt a system that relies solely on reimbursing parents for

206 out-of-pocket expenses, but may determine certain qualified education expenses that must

207 require reimbursement or preapproval for purchase. The commission is authorized to

208 qualify private financial management firms to manage the payment system.

 

231  (a) To assist in the determination of whether certain expenses meet the requirements to be

232  considered a qualified education expense under this chapter, a parent review committee

233  shall be established.

234  (b)(1) The committee shall comprise one person with relevant knowledge, skills, and

235  abilities and eight parents of participating students appointed by the president of the

236  commission. Four of the parents shall reside in local school systems with student

237  enrollment greater than 10,000, and four of the parents shall reside in local school

238  systems with student enrollment less than 10,000.

239  (2)(A)Members of the committee shall serve for staggered three-year terms and may

240  be reappointed; provided, however, that no individual shall be permitted to serve more

241  than three terms.

Illegal immigration in GA: Republicans at work under the Gold Dome *Updated with Crossover Day results

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Rep Jesse Petrea presenting his HB 136 – House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Feb.10, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It looks like Biden’s illegal parolees (formerly known as illegal aliens) numbered nearly 380,000 in the official statistics from October 2021 to September 2022. Many of them are here in GA.”

  • Updates below each bill explanation. Crossover Day was March 6.

Dear Georgians, here is a sample of what Republican legislators are doing at the State Capitol.

Rep Casey Carpenter (R-Dalton) lead sponsor, HB 131

HB 131 (Kasey Carpenter, R- Dalton) Would change GA law to lower tuition rates in taxpayer-funded colleges for illegal aliens who are recipients of the illegal 2012 Obama ‘DACA’ program. The bill would create a new tier of tuition much lower than out-of-state tuition and would not be available to Americans and legal immigrants who attend public colleges in Georgia from other states. Example: An American from Michigan would pay about $7000.00 more in tuition for full time classes than an illegal alien from Mexico at KSU per semester.  The sponsors are calling it “Opportunity Tuition” the illegal alien students are to be known as “Opportunity Students.” Committee Chairman Rep Chuck Martin is pushing hard to pass this one out.  Update: March 2, 2023 – 5:45 PM: HB 131 did not make it out of House Higher education committee  and is dead for the year. 

  • Related: Retired INS & Border Patrol agent sent a letter to House Higher Education Committee Chairman,, Rep. Chuck Martin Re: HB 131.
Sen. Jason Anavitarte (R-Dallas) lead sponsor, SB 112.

SB 112 (Sen Jason Anavitarte, R – Dallas) “Workforce EXCELeration” creates a new “Adult Education” taxpayer-funded benefit being called the “High School Diplomas for Adult Learners” pilot program that would send applicants aged twenty-one and over to the Technical College System of Georgia for classes that result in a high school diploma. As are most bills ordered up by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, it is aimed at increasing the number of workers in the state. The bill does not exclude illegal aliens. It is a violation of federal law to knowingly hire illegal aliens. It is a violation of longstanding state law to allow illegal aliens access to Adult Education. Note: This bill has passed the GOP-controlled Senate. One GOP senator voted “NO”

  • Related: The Georgia Chamber of Commerce “Diversity Equity and Inclusion” page.
Rep Ron Stephens (R- Savannah) lead sponsor, HB 313.

HB 313 (Rep Ron Stephens, R- Savannah) “Workforce EXCELeration” again this is a House companion bill to SB 112 above. As I write, the author has not changed the language to exclude illegal aliens. We say again: It is illegal to hire illegal aliens, high school diploma or not. Both bills contain language that refers to waiving existing law (both state and federal) that is counter to the goal of the measures. Update: This bill did not make it out of committee and is dead for the year.

GA state Senator Greg Dolezal, lead sponsor of SB 233 – “school choice” 2023 edition.

SB 233 (Sen. Greg Dolezal R- Alpharetta) would allow illegal alien “parents” to begin  the application process for eligible students to access the proposed “school choice” state benefit.” More in this post: School choice – SB 233: GOP lawmakers ignore warnings on attention to immigration status of ‘parents’ at their political peril, here.

Note: The above is a corrected version of my original and erroneous description of the bill. I regret the error.

Update and related: Sen. Greg Dolezal omits requirement that students in SB 233 be U.S. citizens or green card holders in bill presentation to House Education committee – Video & transcript

 A good bill below

Rep Jesse Petrea, (R-Savannah) lead sponsor, HB 136.

HB 136 (Rep Jesse Petrea, R- Savannah) would require the Georgia Dept. of Corrections to post a quarterly, public report informing Georgia taxpayers of the number of “criminal illegals” in the state prison system – along with the crimes they committed and home countries. Through the department’s legislative liaison, the Kemp administration is striving to dilute or stop the bill in committee. Similar legislation died in the Republican controlled House in 2019. Update: March 7, 2023 – this bill did not come out of the House Rules committee and is dead for the year.

 

Bonus facts on Georgia, Republican Gov Brian Kemp, presiding, Republican Chris Carr, Attorney General: 

GA is not among the states suing to end Biden’s illegal “parole” hustle. Pictured: (L) -GA AG, Chris Carr, GA Gov. Brian Kemp.

 

Governor Kemp’s Capitol office phone number is 404-656-1776. We hope you already know how to contact your state legislators.

Silence is consent.

Note: A version of this column ran on the subscription news outlet Insider Advantage GA on Feb. 24, 2023 and is published in the Feb. 27, edition of The Islander newspaper in Glynn County, GA.

D.A. King is proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com and president of the Dustin Inman Society @DAKDIS – Twitter

Retired Border Patrol agent and USINS agent Robert Trent sent a letter on HB 131 to Rep Chuck Martin

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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…….)

 

I am blocked at the call-in number of the Erick Erickson radio show

By

 

 “The party you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time.”

My cell phone number may be is  blocked from calling the Erick Erickson radio show 

 

UPDATE: Feb. 9, 2023: Still blocked as per attempt to call in today.

UPDATE: Feb. 23, 2023: Still blocked and I can’t stop laughing.

UPDATE: March 28, 2023: Yep, still blocked.

UPDATE: May 9, 2023. Still blocked from participating win Erick’s show.

UPDATE: June 13, 2023. Yep, still blocked

UPDATE: September 26, 2023 – still blocked from joining the Erick Erickson Show.

UPDATE: August 5, 2024 – still blocked.

  • Bonus: Erick Erickson to GOP: ‘Do school choice as an entitlement!’ – transcript & audio

The below is related to the Erick Erickson radio show from WSB-radio in Atlanta, *Jan 24, 2023. Podcast here – S12 Episode 16, Hour 2.  Transcript on the bottom. Audio below. Below that, audio of the results of me trying to go on the air to ask Erickson about illegal aliens and state-funded private school tuition. I had a statewide column posted that day.

 

 

The below is most of an Erickson segment on “entitlements” and school choice. It’s Erickson’s advice to Republicans – focused further down on Republican state legislators in Georgia. I listen to the show only sporadically but have heard this same idea presented three or four times since last January (our legislature starts up in January) when I called in to suggest Erickson qualify that Georgia taxpayers should not be paying for private school tuition for illegal alien students or families. At the time he was selling the ridiculous HB 999 in the Georgia state House.

Using my iPhone, as I did last year, I tried to call in for this January segment too – I got a recording saying that “the party you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time.” I tried it several times. Same recording. You can hear it in the below 10 second audio recording. Here is a photo of my iPhone screen after several tries.

Then I tried my land line. It went right through to Erickson’s call screener who asked me what I wanted to say and then my name, then told me to hang on for Erick. That was a little before 2:00 PM.

  • Related: Not accepting calls at this time – Recipient is blocking the caller
  • Update: 12:25, Jan 25: With a guest host on Erickson’s show today I used my iPhone to call Erickson’s call in number again. I got the same recording as yesterday. Then I tried using two land lines and my wife’s cellphone. Our calls rang through on all of them except my iPhone. My apologies to the call screener – yep, that was me.

I put the call on speaker and listened as Erickson took four or five calls, including two on school choice. He didn’t put me on the air. The show was over at 3:00 pm. I tried to get on again about three months ago using my iPhone, but stayed on hold for about forty-five minutes before the show was over without being “picked.”

I may have been blocked by Erick Erickson on his show call-in number    877-973-7425.

I can get to the call screener with a land line on a number I have never used to call in, but not on the iPhone number I usually use. I am wondering if Erick Erickson, Republican, conservative, national radio show host has blocked me. Could be…he is also a shameless Brian Kemp protector. I am not. I don’t think either one of them like my determination to expose Kemp, who is also shielded by the Georgia media – including the liberal AJC newspaper. There is no doubt that I am blocked at the AJC.

I follow Erickson on Twitter. I’m not blocked there yet:

  • Erickson file here.
  • (Part of) AJC file here.

__

Transcript by Rev.com. My cost $20.00 and about 4 hours.

Erick Erickson radio host:

“…Actually did show up in the election and vote. The- the people who voted early, the people who voted on election day, they’re surveyed; we have lists of those people. Media agencies go out and find those people. And what we’re finding is that, uh, the cultural conservative values of the GOP, and particularly as the Democratic Party becomes Whiter and Whiter, the culturally conservative values of the GOP are resonating more and more with Black voters.

But, to Michelle’s point, it doesn’t seem like it’s significant because when you’re… when you go from 90% voting Democrat to 85% voting Democrat, you still got 85% voting Democrat. But to put this in further perspective, Brian Kemp got almost half of the Hispanic vote. In 2018, he only got 38% of it. That was a pretty significant shift. He also did better with Black… among Black men in 2022, than 2018.

Put it to you this way, if Republicans continue to improve with the Hispanic vote, Brian Kemp is term-limited, but if the next Republican governor in Georgia does the same in the Hispanic community and the same in the… in the White vote, he’s still gonna win. Republicans in Georgia are shifting the state and I firmly believe, those of you listening in Atlanta, in the state legislature right now, if you would pursue school choice, that issue resonates in the Black and the Hispanic community. You give an entitlement, these voters aren’t gonna walk back that entitlement. This is something you need to pursue.

Time for me to get on my soapbox. Let’s take a Republican and Democratic theory at face value. When you give an entitlement, that entitlement will not go away. Democrats have given Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security, and healthcare, and you name it, and Republicans had never got rid of them. So, Republicans, here is an entitlement to give voters, give families, give citizens, and that is: The opportunity to pick the school of their choice for their children.

You give school choice to the kids; That’s an entitlement. And it is the one entitlement the Democrats hate. So, you will see Democrats campaign on getting rid of it and fighting it. We see this with Katie Hobbs in Arizona; The Republicans gave school choice to parents, Katie Hobbs has come in, she beat Kari Lake, she’s now the governor, and she wants to defund it. There’s already a voter backlash in the Hispanic community against Katie Hobbs for taking away their new entitlement.

You do this in a place like Georgia where Republicans are beginning to make ground with Hispanic voters and Black voters, you’re gonna lock Republicans in for the next several decades because no Democrat running in 2026 is going to campaign on school choice; They’re gonna campaign on getting rid of it. They’re gonna claim, “It killed the public schools.” And you know what? All those parents, whose kids are suddenly getting a good education, they’re gonna vote Republican. This is how Ron DeSantis won in Florida; Andrew Gillum, his opponent, campaigned on finally getting rid of Jeb Bush’s school choice reforms. And Ron DeSantis won enough Black women and Hispanic women, that he barely won the governorship, but he did. And look what happened four years later? He improved school choice, he bolstered it, he strengthened it, he funded those schools.

You all focused on the culture war stuff. The people in Florida, they’re focusing on who we navigated COVID, how we navigated the economy and what he did for school choice. And they all voted for him. That Republicans nationwide are not rushing to school choice is… just shows you how stupid so many people in the party are. Democrats have, for years, given everything to voters and dared Republicans to take it all back. And when Republicans campaign on taking it all back, they lose. That’s why Donald Trump is out right now telling Republicans, “Don’t campaign on cutting Social Security. Don’t campaign on cutting and reforming Medicare and Medicaid. Don’t you dare do it, you’ll lose.” And Republicans are listening to him.

So, give parents hope for their kid’s future. Give parents the opportunity to get their kids out of failing public schools; Where the schools are now more interested in- in turning your kids woke, than helping your kids not be broke. They want your kids to be indoctrinated, not educated. They want your kids to be down with left-wing groupthink. They don’t want your kids to be on entrepreneurial. They don’t want your kids to learn individual responsibility. They don’t want your kids to learn the basics skills to get a job as an entrepreneur and compete against the big business, no, they want your child enslaved to big business. Teaching them Common Core maths, so they can’t get out on their own. Binding them to the administrative governmental state.

You give parents school choice and watch the GOP become the dominant party, and watch the kids thrive. This is the civil right issue of the day, and I cannot believe Republicans aren’t with the program. I can’t believe Republicans nationwide aren’t pushing this. In my state of Georgia, there’s a headline in the newspaper today, that there’s a renewed push to expand Georgia’s private school tuition subsidies. They want a hundred million dollar increase to Georgia’s Student Scholarship Program. So far, they only secured 20 million dollars. The chief architect of the scale back legislation, John Carson of Marietta, is proposing to expand the cap on the Tax Credit Program from a 120 million to 200 million dollars.

The American Federation of Teachers and The, uh, National Education Association are opposed, but the American Federation for Children supports it. Y’all, I- I can’t emphasize this enough: You’ve got to give school choice. You’ve got to allow parents to get their kids out of these public schools. Do you know where I am in Georgia? On Valentine’s Day last year, an elementary school gym teacher decided, on Valentine’s Day, to bring his first grade students into the gym and show them a video on same-sex love. I’m not making that up.

Parents, many of them didn’t know about it until I talked about it on this program. They found out from their first graders, that’s what happened at that elementary school. And the superintendent of the county education system sent me a very indignant letter.

Erick Erickson radio host:

Upset that I exposed what happened. There are a lot of private schools in that county. There are a lot of private schools that would love to take in Black and Hispanic students who are in those failing public schools, but it’s the Republicans who are blocking them. The Democrats don’t have the votes to stop it. The Republicans could embrace full school choice, and these private schools would bring these kids in, allow them in. Don’t- don’t punish the private schools that are Christian and run according to Christian guidelines, you don’t have to do that. Let ’em in and grow. Let ’em in and grow. Support them. You gotta do that.

This is the civil rights issue of our time. Republicans are failing on this. Don’t heap poor kids in failing public schools, when you have the opportunity to give them access to a private school where they can get a great education and become tomorrow’s entrepreneur. You support your job force, your workforce, your future by giving these kids school choice. Whenever you are nationwide, if you’ve got a Republican legislature and a Republican governor, and that’s the majority of the nation, you should be doing this. So, support tomorrow, today.

Now, you should go to edenpuredeals.com and get an EdenPURE Thunderstorm. You can get three of them for less than $200. You’re saving $200, and you get free shipping at edenpuredeals.com. You’ll be greeted with a discount code box. You can put in Erick…