Thirty second video: 2018 television campaign ad from Brian Kemp “I’ll enforce the ban on sanctuary cities…”
Legislators should clean up Georgia before citing other “sanctuary states.”
“A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Chapter 13 of Title 17 of the O.C.G.A., relating to criminal extradition, so as to provide for a determination by the Department of Public Safety of whether persons with a terminated or completed sentence or term of sentence near completion for a conviction are present in the United States illegally; to provide for reporting of such persons to the Attorney General; to require the Attorney General to petition for a writ to transfer such persons to a sanctuary state; to provide for conditions, procedures, and limitations upon issuance of such writs; to provide for consent to a transfer by such persons; to require transfer of such persons after issuance of a writ of transfer to a sanctuary state; to provide for definitions; to provide for construction; to provide for related matters; to provide for a short title; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.”
The essence of HB 1102 is that illegal aliens who have completed or are within 60 days of completing their sentence for violating laws in Georgia would be relocated to a “sanctuary state” which is defined in the bill (line 14) as:
Sanctuary state’ means any state that has adopted a policy or practice which prohibits or restricts state officers or employees from communicating or cooperating with other state or federal officials or state or federal law enforcement officers with regard to reporting immigration status information while such state officer or employee is acting within the scope of his or her official duties.”
Our opinion is that the sponsors should re-examine current reality here in Georgia and understand that the above definition of “sanctuary state” also perfectly fits the ongoing defiance by many Georgia law enforcement agencies.
Shorter: much of Georgia is a sanctuary state.” We urge HB 1102 sponsors to understand the need for passage of a more well thought out measure, HB 1105, “The Georgia Criminal Alien Track and Report Act of 2024.”
We advise all concerned read and digest the message in the image above and the information below.
At his January 1, 2021, swearing in ceremony, Keybo Taylor, the sheriff of Gwinnett County here in Metro Atlanta, told the world “What we will not be doing is notifying ICE of anybody’s immigration status in the jail or any of our facilities.” Keybo’s public declaration of his policy in direct and defiant violation of state law (OCGA 42-4-14) that requires all jailers to use reasonable effort to determine immigration status of foreign-born prisoners and report the illegal aliens to the feds.
This brings up another state law that we need to share here. It’s OCGA 36-80-23 with a title that goes: “Prohibition on immigration sanctuary policies by local governmental entities; certification of compliance.”
The short version of this is that it is illegal for counties, cities, and agencies, including law enforcement agencies, to put in place “sanctuary policies.” The definition of sanctuary policies may sound familiar to the sponsors of HB 1102:
“Sanctuary” in Georgia law
According to the above existing state law, “sanctuary policy” means “any regulation, rule, policy, or practice adopted by a local governing body which prohibits or restricts local officials or employees from communicating or cooperating with federal officials or law enforcement officers with regard to reporting immigration status information while such local official or employee is acting within the scope of his or her official duties.”
Nobody should misunderstand our intent here. We have no problem at all with anyone, especially pro-enforcement state legislators helping us share the knowledge that Gov Brain Kemp not only abandoned his campaign promises on criminal illegals” and ending sanctuary city” policies in Georgia but refuses to enforce the laws against sanctuary policies already in place. But we think HB 1102 would make more sense if we work to enforce our own laws against sanctuary policies before moving criminal aliens to other “sanctuary states.”
Pass HB 1105 before any consideration of HB 1102.
