ACTION NEEDED

ACTION NEEDED, PLEASE.

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January 22, 2022

Below you can see short explanations of three bills pending under Georgia’s Gold Dome. Powerful, well-funded lobby groups are pushing the Republican-controlled legislature to pass HB 120 and HB 932. The same forces are trying to kill HB 228. Please make your voice heard. Contact your state legislators now and often. There will be more bills analyzed here soon. We need help.

* HB 120 would give illegal alien college students living in Georgia with a deferral on deportation in Obama’s DACA program the much lower instate tuition rate in public colleges and technical schools. Americans and legal immigrants from other states who attend the same schools are not eligible for that lower rate and must pay out-of-state tuition.

For academic year 2020-2021, the average tuition & fees for colleges in Georgia was $4,739 for instate and $17,008 for out-of-state according to experts at collegetuition.com .

Last year a federal judge ruled the DACA program to be unlawful. The 11^th circuit appellate court ruled in 2019 that illegal aliens with DACA are still illegal aliens. They do not have legal status and are removable at any time. The Georgia Attorney General’s office takes a similar position. There are about 20K DACA recipients in GA.

Republican Rep. Kasey Carpenter introduced HB 120 in 2021. It puts DACA illegal aliens in front of Americans and legal immigrants. We regard that as un-American. The instate tuition for illegals concept is publicly pushed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce because it would lower wages for Americans and raise corporate profits.The Dustin Inman Society opposes HB120.

Ask your state Rep to oppose. Then call and or email the Speaker’s office (404-656-5020) and leave a polite message with your opinion on this bill. These phone lines have voice mail so you can call on weekends and after business hours.

* HB 932 would allow refugees, foreigners here on Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) and Afghans on “humanitarian parole” to be excluded from the current state law and BOR policy that says newly arrived college students must be GA residents for 12 months before they can access the much lower instate tuition rate in Georgia’s university system. (The Special Immigrant Visa grants permanent residence to foreign nationals who claim to have helped the U.S. government abroad).

HB 932 does not cover Americans and immigrants outside the above description who move to Georgia from other states – they would still be required to pay the higher tuition rate for public colleges/tech schools for the first year of their residence.

HB 932 is sponsored by Republican Rep Wes Cantrell and has Democrat cosponsors. We regard HB 932 as un-American. The Dustin Inman Society opposes HB 932.

Ask your state Rep to oppose. Then call and or email the Speaker’s office (404-656-5020) and leave a polite message with your opinion on this bill. These phone lines have voice mail so you can call on weekends and after business hours.

* HB 228 (Republican Rep Charlice Byrd) addresses the fact that Georgia issues drivers licenses and ID Cards to foreigners but has no law that excludes these credentials from acceptance as “proper identification” for voting purposes. The bill fixes that loophole and adds the wording “BEARER NOT U.S. CITIZEN-NOT VOTER ID” to the front of the non-citizen drivers licenses and ID Cards. It also requires DDS to change the first two characters of the serial number of these credentials to “NC” to reflect non-U.S. citizen status for mail-in vote security. We regard this bill to be a commonsense fix to a needless gap in election integrity. The Dustin Inman supports HB 228.

Ask your state Rep to help with passage as a cosponsor. Then call and or email the Speaker’s office – (404-656-5020) and leave a polite message with your opinion on this bill. These phone lines have voice mail so you can call on weekends and after business hours.

More information is easily accessed at ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com and NewDustinInmanSociety.org. dak – 22 Jan 2022

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Georgia Gov Kemp’s office number is 404-656-1776. It’s not easy, but he can be emailed here . We recommend using “legal” in the “what does your request relate to?” box.

Non-citizen drivers licenses not excluded for acceptance at voting polls…

Georgia drivers license issued to non-citizens. Photo DDS

Georgia law does not exclude the drivers licenses and official ID cards issued to foreigners – including about 22,000 illegal aliens with Obama’s DACA – from acceptance as “proper ID” at our polls. The credentials issued to these aliens is just like U.S. citizen’s but with the addition of “LIMITED TERM” on top. You can read about that fact here. We hope you will call Governor Brian Kemp’s office and leave a polite message with the staffer making it clear that the law on acceptable voter ID must be changed and that the cards given to non-citizens should be clearly different from citizen’s drivers licenses – and if the state government insists on rewarding illegal aliens with driving and ID credentials, legal resident’s documents should be different from those given to illegal aliens.

We clearly note that a U.S. citizen is under age 21, but do not do the same for foreigners, including illegal aliens.

The below column was written and sent as a submission to NRO but politely declined with an explanation from the submission editor who told me he was “satisfied” with their coverage of the Georgia GOP gubernatorial primary race. I wrote and submitted on Friday, May 13. Turns out the same editor had written and posted his own column on Georgia’s GOP race the same day. His take (and I think information level) was different than mine.

Update 10:20 AM: National Review endorsed Brian Kemp for reelection the next Friday, today, May 20 without any mention Kemp’s betrayal on his 2018 campaign promises on “criminal illegals.”

As of about 10 minutes ago I am no longer a National Review subscriber. We have the liberal AJC here to ignore Kemp’s defiance on illegal immigration in Georgia, we don’t need NR.

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Submission:

The GOP Gubernatorial Primary and Illegal Immigration in “Georgiafornia”

A pro-enforcement report from the now purple Peach State

D.A. King

According to latest estimates from DHS, Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than Arizona. In the partially successful effort to end 287(g) agreements in the state, the corporate-funded Georgia Budget and Policy Institute used a pie chart to point out that “the Peach State” is also home to more illegal aliens than green card holders. We have taken to referring to our home state as “Georgiafornia”

With the May 24^th state Republican primary looming, conservative observers around the country may assume that a very large part of the gubernatorial candidate debate between incumbent Gov Brian Kemp and Trump-endorsed challenger, former Senator David Perdue, has been on illegal immigration in Georgia. They may also logically assume that Perdue would be laser-focused and effusive on Kemp’s dismal record on illegal immigration as governor and his 2018 campaign promises on that matter. Not exactly.

Kemp has the well-deserved Georgia Chamber of Commerce endorsement. To get an idea of the politics of immigration here, readers should know that the Georgia Chamber fought the passage of the 2011 law that implemented E-Verify for some private employers and is pushing to allow illegal aliens with DACA status to pay instate tuition as part of a “Global Talent Initiative.”

The afore-mentioned E-Verify law was weakened after it was put in place and enforcement is all but nonexistent. Kemp’s endless reelection mantra is that “Georgia is number one for business” and that he has kept all his 2018 campaign promises. Apparently, it is. He hasn’t.

As one may expect and as Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies noted on NRO near the end of the primary runoff race here four years ago, Kemp did not make promises on attacking the root cause of illegal immigration (spoiler: it’s illegal employment). Back then Kemp largely hung his hat on a repeated pledge to go after what he called “criminal illegals.”

He promised to create a public registry of criminal illegal aliens and put out a detailed outline of legislation he pledged to send to the state legislature entitled “Brian Kemp’s Track and Deport Plan.”

In his not-to-be missed first 2018 TV campaign ad Kemp expanded on the theme by assuring voters that he would “…enforce the ban on sanctuary cities and track and deport all criminal illegal aliens so our kids don’t become the next victims.” Never mind the fact that governors have zero authority or ability to deport anyone. He was on a roll.

“I got a big truck just on case I need to round up criminal illegals and take ‘em home myself” was the line delivered by candidate Brian Kemp in another memorable 2018 TV ad.

None of it ever happened. Kemp has not mentioned any of it since 2018.

Now, all questions about Kemp’s promises about “criminal illegals” in Georgia are met with a diversionary reference to “the border.” The response to the glaring obfuscation from loyal and obedient Republican voters is often that “we don’t’ want Stacey!” in reference to Stacy Abrams’ candidacy for governor of formerly ruby red Georgia.

At the pro-enforcement Dustin Inman Society, of which this writer is founder and president, we collectively refer to Kemp’s silent defiance as the “big truck trick” and have installed a counter on our website to track the period of his silence.

For his part, Perdue has nothing on his campaign website “issues” page concerning illegal immigration and to our knowledge he hasn’t brought up the absence of any promised Kemp registry of “criminal illegals” or ending the openly illegal sanctuary polices in the state. He did take some shots at Kemp in the recent series of three TV debates.

“On the governor’s watch, we have more illegal immigrants in Georgia than when he took office. We actually have more illegal immigrants here than the state of Arizona” said Perdue. “As a matter of fact, if you look at Florida, 70% of their counties have a contract with ICE to find and deport illegal criminals. In Georgia, only 3% of our counties” in reference to the important federal Warrant Service Officer (WSO) program – essentially 287(g) light.

“On his watch, we have grown (the) illegal community here, and I think the Hispanic community here that’s hardworking, small business and all that, really want that cleaned up too.”

“I remember the governor, when he ran in ’18, told us that, you know, “I’m gonna round them up, put them in my pickup truck, and get them out of here.” Governor, what happened? Your pickup break down? Perdue asked.

In an apparent “because Covid” response, Kemp replied “No. Still running. Still running, still working, still creating jobs, still doing something about stopping folks coming across the border…I don’t know how going around picking up people that might have COVID when our law enforcement was sending, um, ventilators and PPE supplies to hospitals would’ve been a good strategy.” Transcript.

The Republican Party in metro-Atlanta’s Cobb County censured Kemp in October 2021 for his failure to honor his immigration related promises.

An eight-page January “Georgians First” campaign mailer from Kemp did not touch illegal immigration.

A May 10 Perdue campaign internal memo did not mention Kemp’s immigration, broken promises weakness.

An April 25 poll from the liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper revealed that more than 90% of Republican respondents answered that immigration and border security was “extremely important” or “very important” in deciding how to vote in the Republican primary. (Editor: Q8 here)

Trump’s former Acting ICE Director, Tom Homan, came out in support of Perdue late last week with harsh words for Kemp. “When it comes to dealing with illegal immigration, Kemp has failed the people of Georgia and this nation.”

So far, Georgia media has treated Homan’s expert observation a well kept secret.

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D.A. King of Marietta, GA is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com. An independent voter, he has assisted Georgia lawmakers with illegal immigration-related legislation since 2005. @DAKDIS 404-***-****

dak