Search Results for: politics georgia

 

Lopez’s involvement as a member of the board of directors of the anti-enforcement GALEO after he became a state judge was the deal killer for federal bench confirmation in 2016.

 

The Georgia Supreme Court has announced the appointment of former DeKalb Co. Judge Dax Lopez to the Hearing Panel of the Judicial Qualifications Commission.

“López, a former DeKalb County State Court Judge now in private practice, will replace Jamala McFadden, who is completing five years of service on the JQC and was recently appointed by the Court to serve on the Board to Determine Fitness of Bar Applicants, which is part of the Court’s Office of Bar Admissions. López will begin his four-year term on July 1, 2022.

The Judicial Qualifications Commission is the constitutional body that educates Georgia judges about their ethical duties and conducts investigations and hearings regarding judges’ misconduct. The JQC’s Hearing Panel consists of one judge member, one attorney member, and one non-lawyer citizen member. The Hearing Panel adjudicates formal charges made against judges, makes recommendations to the Supreme Court as to disciplinary and incapacity orders against judges, and issues formal advisory opinions.” goes the Court’s media release.

Lopez was nominated to become a federal judge in Georgia’s Northern District by then President Barack Obama in 2015. The required Senate confirmation process ended in early 2016 when then Georgia Senator David Perdue refused to send in the “Blue Slip” granting his approval of the nomination. Perdue cited Lopez’ long history of aiding and assisting the rabidly anti-enforcement GALEO Inc and Lopez’ membership on the GALEO board as cause to doubt Lopez’ suitability as a federal judge.”…there were some things that gave me great concern with regard to naming him to a lifetime appointment to a federal bench” Perdue told Politico at the time.

Lopez served as Keynote speaker at a GALEO funder after he became a judge. Jane Fonda is a GALEO “Founding Friend.”

The Dustin Inman Society has tracked and recorded GALEO activities for nearly two decades and was proud to be invited to meet with Sen. Perdue’s senior staff and legal counsel and to provide information on GALEO, its Executive Director, Jerry Gonzalez, and Lopez’ involvement. Readers who are not familiar with the story or corporate-funded GALEO can see here for “a beginner’s guide” to the leftist group.

It usually amazes readers to know that Coca-Cola and Georgia Power are two of the corporations that fund GALEO.

Current GOP state Senator Jason Anavitarte is also a former GALEO board member.

 

 

 

“Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.” Thomas Sowell 2017

Note: A version of hit essay was originally posted on the subscription news and opinion site, InsiderAdvantage.com (now James Magazine Online) January 26, 2021.

 

In 2011, Aurelio Mayo Perez, an illegal alien, was booked into the Cobb County jail for no driver’s license but released due to an immigration enforcement reduction edict from then-President Barack Obama. Two years later, Mayo Perez was charged with aggravated child molestation and rape. The name of the ten-year old girl he was convicted of repeatedly molesting is not available.

Last week, newly sworn Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens held an elaborate press conference packed with invited anti-enforcement activists and proudly announced his termination of the 287(g) program. The Marietta Daily Journal described the event’s big finish with “…as the event ended, and a mariachi band began to play, the mood in the room was decidedly celebratory. The new sheriff even took to the floor and waltzed for a moment, reveling in his audience’s approval.”  Cobb County Deputy Sheriff Loren Lilly – killed by an unlicensed illegal alien driver in a 2007 traffic crash – was unable to attend.

Democrat Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid pronounced Owens’ decision “bold, necessary, and overdue.” Cobb’s new District Attorney, Flynn Broady weighed in with “this is going to make our community safer.” We recommend reading the entire MDJ report

Created by congress in 1996, and signed into law by Bill Clinton, the voluntary 287(g) program is a tool used to expand the authority of local law enforcement to locate and report to ICE illegal aliens, usually in county jails. It’s a deterrent. Then-Senator Joe Biden voted in favor of passage.

The liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution reports Owens claims “the program morphed into one that profiled immigrants through traffic stops, which resulted in them being deported on misdemeanor charges.” While Sheriff Owens – a former Cobb County policeman – is certainly free to smear his fellow law enforcement officers with accusations of profiling, he should understand that it’s illegal aliens who are deported and that removal is the punishment for illegal immigration, not traffic violations.

Jose Alfaro-Contraras, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was one of the gunmen in an April, 2015 armed robbery of the owner of a check-cashing store in Duluth. A year earlier, Alfaro-Contraras had been in the Gwinnett County jail on a shoplifting charge. He was released because “minor crime.”

The above examples are taken from a 2017 report “Jail records reveal immigrants not deported after minor crimes later commit worse ones” from Atlanta’s Fox Five TV News investigative reporter Randy Travis.

Related: According to the anti-enforcement Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than green card holders.

In metro -Atlanta’s Gwinnett County, on his first day in office, Sheriff Keybo Taylor made his enforcement policy clear when he quit the 287(g) program: “What we will not be doing is notifying ICE of anybody’s immigration status in the jail or any of our facilities…” said Taylor at his own presser. He told a local NPR interviewer 287(g) is slanted towards “people of color.”

“So basically, what that program started to do was target, uh, you know, people of color that were in this country that’s undocumented, so, you know, it became, you know, a racist issue for me…”,

He says he would rather focus on gang members. I was curious, so I checked with experts on gangs in Gwinnett and the skin color concern Taylor expressed. But on that topic Sheriff Taylor apparently does have concerns about borders “…crime and criminals…they don’t, they do not respect borders, so, you know, it’s nothing to come from Atlanta to Gwinnett County…” says Taylor. Indeed.

In print and radio interviews, both sheriffs have done a remarkable job of learning and adhering to the anti-287(g) talking points distributed by the far-left. Below are some of those tips from a 2008 ACLU ‘toolkit.’

‘How to oppose 287(g) agreements in your state or locality’

*Always describe how police enforcement of immigration laws endangers public safety for everyone.

*Assert that local police of immigration laws will result in widespread racial profiling.

*Assert that immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government.

*Assert that police resources are stretched thin already.

Georgia law as a ‘Plan B’ plan to address anti-enforcement sheriffs

Attention Georgia prosecutors, including Flynn Broady: Independent of 287(g), longstanding (2006) state law (OCGA 42-4-14) requires jailers to check the immigration status of incoming foreign prisoners. “If the foreign national is determined to be an illegal alien, the keeper of the jail or other officer shall notify the United States Department of Homeland Security, or other office or agency designated for notification by the federal government.”

The AJC – again

 In an entirely unbalanced, celebratory report on Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens ending 287(g) the AJC recently told readers as a statement of fact “the program originally began to remove terrorists, as well as other violent criminals, from neighborhoods across the country.” But, as was noted here in December, the law establishing 287(g) program never limited it to applying only to terrorists or illegal aliens who were arrested for violent crimes.

The liberal AJC has not covered the fact that the above law is not enforced.

D.A. King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society.

 Gwinnett County Sheriff’s public defiance of state law on checking immigration status of foreign-born prisoners should be “an issue”

 

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With time running out before the Republican Primary, ending the pretense on Governor Kemp and the ludicrous premise that he has fulfilled all his 2018 campaign promises is long past due. He hasn’t. We point to Kemp’s detailed but narrow 2018 campaign promises on illegal immigration in Georgia.

Likewise, since primary challenger and former U.S. Senator Perdue has finally brought up Kemp’s “Big Truck Trick” as related to removing illegal aliens in last Sunday’s debate, it is past time for Perdue to let voters know if he would do anything as governor regarding the organized crime that is illegal immigration – in Georgia. If so, what, exactly?

This writer is one of many pro-enforcement Independents whose vote in 2022 does not depend on what yarn we hear from either side about what happened in the 2020 election debacle. We are laser-focused on illegal immigration in Georgia and the needless dangers and miseries it imposes on Georgians.

While vying for the 2018 GOP candidacy, Kemp did not promise to send Georgia’s National Guard to the border. As Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies noted on NRO at the time, neither did he mention addressing the root cause of illegal immigration (spoiler: it’s  illegal employment).

But candidate Kemp did repeatedly pledge to go after “criminal illegals.” He promised to create a public registry of criminal illegal aliens. He put out a detailed outline of legislation he promised to send to the General Assembly entitled “Brian Kemp’s Track and Deport Plan.”

“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” went the detailed assurance Kemp made on his 2018 campaign website.

None of it ever happened.

Related: Illegal immigration issue absent in eight-page, January 2022 Kemp campaign mailer

As this writer lamented last June (‘Kemp risks defeat by ignoring promises on illegal immigration action’), Kemp has alienated a significant number of voters by ignoring illegal immigration in Georgia. More so when he emphatically boasts that he has kept all his promises but responds to questions about his lack of action on criminal aliens in Georgia with “but the border…” as if all conservative voters are too dim to recognize the obfuscation.

Perhaps the most glaring example of executive abuse is Kemp’s refusal to direct his Attorney General to investigate and prosecute Georgia jailers who are in proud and public violation of a hard-fought public safety law regarding…criminal illegals.

The 2006 Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act (SB 529) created a state mandate that jailers check immigration status of foreigners in their jails and report illegal aliens to the feds. We invite all concerned to read the very short OCGA 42-4-14.

Then a state legislator, Kemp was Chairman of the Senate Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee that passed out the measure creating this regulation. “Many Georgians are “fed up” with illegal immigration,” he told the liberal AJC at the time. He voted in favor of final passage.

Compare the above-mentioned state law with the defiant public pledge made by Gwinnett County Sheriff Keybo Taylor– a jailer – at his swearing-in event on January 1, 2021: “What we will not be doing is notifying ICE of anybody’s immigration status in the jail or in any of our facilities.”

The Cobb Sheriff has taken a similar stance that was noted here last year – ‘Ga. Law: Jailers must report incarcerated illegal aliens to feds.’

Media silence

Over the course of 2021 this writer sent a “news tip” to virtually every news outlet in Atlanta on this matter. To our knowledge, the only news story on the topic came from the liberal AJC in the form of a celebratory item noting the one-year anniversary of the end of 287(g) in Cobb and Gwinnett counties.

“With 287(g) no longer in force, local jail officials have stopped systemically checking the immigration status of individuals arrested for a variety of crimes – including minor traffic violations – and sharing that information with immigration officials to initiate deportation proceedings” is how the editors at the “watchdog” AJC described the obvious defiance by Gwinnett Sheriff Keybo Taylor and others who ignore this law. The AJC headline was ‘There’s less fear’: Metro Atlanta immigrants feel safer with new sheriffs.’

Kemp’s first TV campaign ad in 2018 was all about ending “sanctuary” polices.

Perdue late to the obvious issue

Candidate Perdue has only very recently resorted to pointing to candidate Kemp’s failure to honor 2018 illegal immigration promises – and has not scratched the surface of this key issue. He’s late but it’s not too late. We say again: Many pro-enforcement voters are straining to hear some educated, detailed, and workable solutions to illegal immigration in Georgia from Perdue.

There is plenty of evidence that offended voters leave some choices blank on the ballot – or stay home.

Perdue can always resort to promising to enforce the many laws already on the books in Georgia aimed at making us less attractive to illegal immigration.

Let’s start with the Gwinnett County sheriff.

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A version of this essay originally ran on the subscription outlet Insider Advantage on April 27, 2020

D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com He has assisted state lawmakers with legislation since 2005.