Many thanks to a very efficient staffer at the Georgia House Budget and Research Office for the patient direction. HB 916 (2024)
ACLU Tool kit for attacking lifesaving 287 (g) agreements (click on the logo)
Open records request sent to TCSG on July 8, 2024 Re: Compliance with new language added to OCGA 56-36-1 in 2024 SB 497
- Updated with reply
- SB 497 here (see lines 197-201)
To whom it may concern at TCSG,
Please regard this email as my official request for copies of public records.
Please send me a copy of any and all applications, affidavits, forms, guidelines, information pages and documents listing and/or explaining requirements for identification required by TCSG connected with the administration and processing of individuals who apply to benefit from the Registered Apprenticeship Program and the “High Demand Apprenticeship Program” (HDAP) administered by the Technical System of Georgia.
Please contact me with any questions.
Thank you,
D.A. King
Marietta
404-
________________
Response received via email on July 10, 2024 AT 8:52 PM (copied to Neely, Donna , McKoon, Josh)
Dear Mr. King,
We are in receipt of your request under Georgia Open Records Act. The documents you have requested are not available because they are being created now in compliance with the applicable law. As soon as these documents are finalized, we will submit them to you in fulfillment your pending request. Please do not hesitate to contact me with further questions or concerns.
Best regards,
Leigh Keever
Policy Coordinator
Office of Legal Services
TCSG
Media request sent to the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) Re: Comment on the Addition of “Apprenticeships” to list of public benefits, OCGA 50-36-1 *Updated with reply
-
Updated with response from Mark D’Alessio, TCSG Communications Director (note: I have added links to various documents to educate the reader).
The below media request was sent at 11:04 AM July 8, 2024 to various officials and staff at TCSG
mdalessio@tcsg.edu, bsims@tcsg.edu, gdozier@tcsg.edu, jmckoon@tcsg.edu, tharris@tcsg.edu , kkirchler@tcsg.edu , mdollar@tcsg.edu , mpeevy@tcsg.edu
___
To whom it may concern at TCSG,
I am writing an educational opinion column focused on the change instituted by lines 197 – 201 inSB 497 as passed in the 2024 legislative session to the Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAPs) operated by TCSG as part of the newly renamed HDAP. Line 201 adds “Apprenticeships” to the list of public benefits in OCGA 50-36-1 (“Verification of Lawful Presence Within the United States”). I have been working with OCGA 50-36-1 since it was created in 2006. Generally, this addition to the law creates a mandate for applicants for the public benefit of “Apprenticeships” to complete and submit applications, affidavits and “Secure and Verifiable ID” while making TCSG responsible to collecting the documents and being registered with the federal SAVE program as a way of verifying eligibility of the applicant in the administration process.
Willful violation of the code section by an agency head can be prosecuted as a high and aggravated misdemeanor.
I did extensive research with assistance from your office in December 2023 and January 2024 on the apprenticeship program and am all but certain that I was informed the TCSG did not require an application for a prospective apprentice as that was done at the federal level. I assume the new law has changed that scenario and that there is now an application process in place in Georgia. I note that the USDOL apprentice application does not require an SSN.
In addition to this request for comment I am submitting an open records request today to TCSG asking for a copy of any application needed to satisfy the new requirement and copies of any documents that have been processed for prospective participants in the apprenticeship program since the law became effective on July 1. My ORR will include a request for copies of applications for participation in the apprenticeship benefit by apprentices themselves, and also employers and sponsors who desire to send employees to be “unskilled” at taxpayer expense and become beneficiaries of state funding to create and expand Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs).
Supra.com has reported that “through RAPs, employers can access support to train skilled workers and meet their workforce needs. Currently, Georgia has more than 10,000 apprentices in RAPs.”
I am also interested in educating readers on the inclusion of H1-B workers in the RAP. Please note that I was assured by TCSG staff earlier this year that “undocumented immigrants” can participate in the RAP and by another staffer that H1-B workers were apprenticeship beneficiaries.
To insure a fair, balanced and accurate write up of TCSG’s adherence to the law and to explain the changes made by the TCSG staff to accommodate the new mandate, I would welcome any input, comment, explanation and description of any newly instituted administrative practices by TCSG in this regard from your office.
I will likely have additional questions on details as follow-up. I would be grateful for your input in my effort to educate readers that includes many Georgia legislators.
I not only write on my own blog (ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com), but also at James Magazine Online, various Georgia newspapers, Breitbart News and The Federalist.
Please contact me with any questions. I look forward to your input. My deadline is Noon, Friday, July 12, 2024.
Thank you for your consideration.
D.A. King
Marietta
404
______________
Response received from TCSG’s Mark D’Allessio (Executive Director Office of Communications, TCSG) on July 11, 2024 at 2:18 PM
“Hi Mr. King
To administer S.B. 497 the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), Office of Workforce Development (OWD) anticipates carrying out the following procedure in reference to the requirements of O.C.G.A § 50-36-1. We anticipate that this procedure will be included in the High Demand Apprenticeship Program Policy and Procedures document reviewed and approved by the TCSG Board at a later date, but prior to the start of the application period.
For an employer to be eligible for a contract to be executed with TCSG, the employer must submit to OWD the following required documents:
- Signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Agreement
- Supplier Change Request (SCR)/Vendor Management form
- IRS Form W-9
- Employment & Training Administration (ETA) Form 671 (for apprentice)
- Wage Verification Form (for apprentice)
The following process would be completed by the individual apprentice:
Federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program
In accordance with Georgia law (O.C.G.A § 50-36-1), the Office of Workforce Development will require apprentices whose employer receive funds from the High Demand Apprenticeship Program to provide the following documents as verification of lawful presence in the U.S:
At least one (1) Secure and Verifiable document (for apprentice)
o Driver’s License/State ID
o U.S. Passport
o Military ID
o U.S. Permanent Resident Card (Green card), etc.
Signed Verification of Eligibility for Public Benefit Affidavit w/ One of the Three Categories Selected (for apprentice)
o U.S. Citizen
o Legal permanent resident of the U.S
o Qualified Alien or Non-immigrant under the Federal Immigration & Nationality Act
Applicants who identify themselves as Qualified Aliens/Non-immigrants on the affidavit must be verified through the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program (SAVE).
The contract award agreement will be issued to the employer contingent on the documents being submitted to TCSG and successfully passing SAVE verification. Any apprentice that fails to provide documentation or fails to pass verification will be ineligible to participate in the HDAP.
Once the contract agreement has been finalized and all apprentices have been verified, the employer is permitted to participate in the HDAP and receive associated funding per the contract agreement award terms and conditions.
Thank you
Mark”
Mark D’Alessio
Executive Director
Office of Communications
O: 404.679.1617 | C: 770.545.7545
No, The Biden Administration has not Removed a Record Number of Illegal Aliens
AFPI.com
Robert Law, JUNE 27, 2024
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Recently, the Biden Administration made the dubious claim that it has “removed or returned” a record number of illegal aliens.
This deceptive claim involves conflating interior enforcement (removals) with border turn-backs (returns) and provides an incomplete snapshot of the overall outcome for the illegal aliens recorded in this dataset.
DHS data show that the Biden Administration has executed record-low ICE removals. In fact, every year under the current administration (Fiscal Years 2021–2023), there have been fewer removals than the Trump Administration executed in Fiscal Year 2020, despite all of the restrictions and challenges associated with COVID-19.
The Biden Administration’s open border policies and nationwide catch-and-release practice have caused a historic humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border. Over the last three and a half years, a record 12 million illegal aliens, including 1.8 million known “gotaways,” have crossed our borders unlawfully. Because the unsecure southern border has received a lot of attention and scrutiny, President Joe Biden issued an executive order in early June 2024 that he claimed would solve the border crisis. In reality, the policies in the executive order would further fuel the border crisis and allow an estimated 2.5 million illegal aliens into the country every year.
In a statement accompanying the executive order, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was impeached by the House of Representatives, made a bold claim about the administration’s immigration enforcement record. Specifically, he said, “Throughout the last three fiscal years, a majority of all southwest border encounters resulted in a removal, return, or expulsion. Over the past year alone, we have removed or returned more than 750,000 people, more than in any fiscal year since 2010.”
Mayorkas’s choice to lump “removal,” “return,” and “expulsion” together as if they carry the same meaning was an attempt at a clever sleight of hand. When it comes to immigration, terminology matters in understanding the proper context for or implications of a policy. The term “expulsion” applies to an alien turned away at the border under the Title 42 public health authority that President Trump activated in March 2020 to stop the further introduction of COVID-19 by migrants. President Biden terminated the Title 42 authority in May 2023. By contrast, a removal, as explained in the annual U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations Report, is “the compulsory and confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States.” The report says that “ICE removals include both aliens arrested by [ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)] in the interior of the country and aliens who were apprehended by [U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)] and turned over to ERO for removal efforts.” Finally, a “return” is an unofficial term that covers denying illegal aliens entry to the country without imposing further immigration consequences for their attempted unlawful entry.
REMOVALS REPRESENT INTERIOR ENFORCEMENT
The most accurate data set to review when assessing the immigration enforcement record of an administration is removals because that data accounts for the removal of an illegal alien who is physically in the United States. In the chart below, green indicates that the ICE removal originated with a CBP apprehension, and blue indicates an ICE apprehension. As shown in the chart, DHS data reveal that a record low number of illegal aliens are being removed from the United States under the Biden Administration despite the highest levels of encounters.
A quick review of the Fiscal Year 2023 report, the most recently available, reveals that ICE has removed fewer illegal aliens each year under the Biden Administration than occurred even in the lowest year for removals under the Trump Administration—Fiscal Year 2020 when COVID-19 restrictions disrupted the globe.
As demonstrated in the chart, during the Trump Administration, ICE removed nearly 1 million illegal aliens: 226,119 in Fiscal Year 2017, 256,085 in Fiscal Year 2018, 267,258 in Fiscal Year 2019, and 185,884 in Fiscal Year 2020. By comparison, over the first three years of the Biden Administration, ICE has removed fewer than 275,000 illegal aliens: 59,011 in Fiscal Year 2021, 72,177 in FY 2022, and 142,580 in Fiscal Year 2023. To put these numbers into context further, ICE removals in Fiscal Year 2018 were nearly the same as the combined removals from Fiscal Years 2021–2023.
RETURNS ARE NOT INTERIOR ENFORCEMENT
Regarding Mayorkas’s enforcement claim, it is clear he is deceiving the American people by lumping in very few ICE removals with allegedly very high border returns. Mayorkas said that between June 2023 and May 2024, more than 750,000 illegal aliens were “removed or returned.” He did not provide any data to support his claim, and the FY 2023 ICE removals only cover through September 2023. While one can only speculate whether ICE removals have increased to some degree in FY 2024, it is implausible that they have increased by more than half a million—or more than four-fold—from the FY 2023 total of 142,580. Thus, Mayorkas’s claim is only remotely feasible if one is to believe that “returns” make up an enormous share of his statistics.
Returns are an inferior enforcement statistic for several reasons. First, return statistics likely include multiple returns associated with a single illegal alien who made attempts to cross unlawfully on different days. Second, the data fail to account for the high probability under Biden Administration policies that an alien returned one day and subsequently made it into the country unlawfully, either through catch-and-release or as a ‘gotaway.’ Third, many of the illegal aliens returned across the border by Border Patrol agents were likely instructed to reappear at a port of entry and be allowed into the United States through the unlawful CBP One parole scheme. Accordingly, returns do not reflect an enforcement action from within the U.S., inherently overcount the total number of illegal aliens turned away, and do not indicate whether the alien subsequently made it into the country through another mechanism. As a result, returns provide an incomplete picture of enforcement outcomes and should not be viewed as a proper interior enforcement metric.
CONCLUSION… read the rest here.
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