Here.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution should run a correction – but they won’t

 

 

My column posted on Insider Advantage last week (GOP senators and another ‘Americans last’ tuition bill) concerned several Republican state senators cosponsoring a Democrat bill (SB 264) aimed at amending state law on instate tuition. I didn’t get to the fact that the left-wing Atlanta Journal Constitution is unapologetically pushing the bill in its opinion posts with agenda-driven misinformation.

In a May 24, 2023 post AJC ‘Get Schooled’ blog writer Maureen Downey leads readers to believe that refugees are unable to access instate tuition. She introduced a guest column from an Afghan woman, Husnia Jamal, who apparently entered the U.S. as a refugee. “In a guest column, Jamal urges Georgia to embrace legislation that would allow refugees to qualify for in-state tuition. Several related measures stalled, including two bipartisan bills that would provide in-state tuition for refugees,” wrote Downey.

In that article (“Opinion: Afghan women refugees like me want a future in Georgia”) guest writer Jamal tells readers “But I, like so many other displaced people living in Georgia, found out that I could not access in-state tuition here — no matter how long I live, work, or pay state taxes — because of my immigration status. This makes it harder for us to rebuild our lives.”

“Bipartisan bills introduced in the Georgia state House and Senate this year would have changed that. The bills did not succeed” wrote Jamal.

It would nice to know exactly what visa she used to enter the U.S. but it is safe to assume that if she is not a refugee, Jamal is likely a beneficiary of the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole or is in the category of  “special immigrant.” Otherwise inadmissible aliens in that status are known as “Special Visa Immigrants”, or SIVs.

The reality is that state law (OCGA 20-3-66) as well as Regent’s policy (4.3.2.3) says new residents (even Afghans) must live here for a year before they can be eligible for the instate tuition rate. After that, foreign nationals with legal status – including refugees – can access the lower instate rate. Just like Americans.

• Related: Atlanta Journal Constitution (newsroom) ethics code

Note to AJC opinion editors: That fact is reflected in at least two AJC news reports on last year’s version of the bills Downey wrote about.

“Currently, refugees must wait one year after settling in Georgia to establish residency to qualify for the lower in-state tuition rates, which are roughly three times smaller than their out-of-state counterparts” says the AJC in a Feb 24, 2022 news report (Georgia lawmakers favor tuition bill for refugee college students).

And in a one-sided January 2002 news report (Lawmakers introduce bill to help refugees attend Georgia colleges) “House Bill 932 seeks to extend in-state tuition rates to refugee students at the University System of Georgia and the Technical College System of Georgia as soon as they settle in the state. Under U.S. law, refugees are people who must relocate from their home country because of humanitarian concerns.”

The ‘Report for America’ immigration team reporter at the Atlanta paper went on with “currently they must abide by a one-year waiting period after settling in Georgia to establish residency and qualify for the lower in-state tuition rates, which are roughly three times smaller than their out-of-state counterparts” – again.

The AJC sub headline then was “legislation would help refugees qualify for more affordable in-state tuition rates as soon as they settle in the state.

As I wrote, while excluding Americans, SB 264 is written to change state law so that a list of foreigners can obtain the instate tuition rate “immediately upon settlement in Georgia.” All concerned – including state lawmakers and AJC opinion staff– should read lines 22 and 23 in the bill.

Copying senior AJC editors and the new publisher, Andrew Morse, I sent a letter for publication to the newspaper pointing out the inaccuracy in Downey’s work asking for a correction. Soon after I received a “reply all” answer from opinion editor Andre Jackson who told me that in his opinion “no correction’s warranted to the Op-Ed.”

Oh.

We think it’s worth knowing what’s really going on.

Senator Mike Dugan and SB 264

The story around SB 264 continues to expand. A version of my original IA column was later published in the Star News in exurban Carroll County which is in Republican state Senator Mike Dugan’s district (Dugan is the number two signer on the Democrat bill). The Star News editor ran a response from Dugan in the same edition that contains some remarkable inaccuracies, including his assurance to his constituents that the bill never had a hearing and is now somehow dead. The fact is that there was a hearing on SB 264 and it is very much alive under the Gold Dome for 2024. Interested readers can see a video archive of that hearing and a well-sourced fact check at ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com.

King is head of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com.

A version of the above column was posted on the subscription outlet Insider Advantage Georgia on June 14, 2023 and on ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com on June 15, 2023.

 

“It’s not every day that an opportunity like this comes along to get accountability from one of the worst actors on the left. Don’t squander it.”

Mark Krikorian

June 7, 2023

National Review Online 

You know those websites listing celebrities you thought were dead but are still around? The Southern Poverty Law Center might as well have been on such a list.

The “civil rights” group has been lying low for some time, since the eruption of multiple humiliating scandals involving racism and sexual harassment that led to the firing of most of the group’s leadership, including founder Morris Dees.

The appearance of its annual “hate map” was months late, raising suspicions that there were changes afoot. No such luck — the latest anathema was just pronounced. (Google it yourself, if you want to see it.)

The Center for Immigration Studies is still there, of course; after operating for three decades, we graduated to “hate group” status right after Trump’s election in 2016 — coincidentally.

The other usual targets are still there as well: Alliance Defending Freedom, Center for Security Policy, Family Research Council, etc.

But in what I assume is a bid to goose donations (and add to its half-billion-dollar hoard of cash), the SPLC has added parents’-rights groups like Moms for Liberty to the hate map. (Tyler O’Neil, author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Daily Signal’s indefatigable SPLC-watcher, is on the case.)

But the SPLC may be facing an unprecedented challenge. Earlier this year, a defamation lawsuit against it for a “hate group” designation was, for the first time ever, not dismissed and has made it to the discovery stage. The Dustin Inman Society — run by immigration-enforcement dynamo D. A. King in Georgia — was classified as a “hate group” in 2018, right after the SPLC registered as a lobbying organization to oppose a bill King supported in the state legislature. (Coincidentally.)

Defamation is hard to prove under U.S. law. D. James Kennedy Ministriestried and failed. We at CIS tried a different tack, filing a civil RICO suitagainst SPLC, but also failed. (The multimillion-dollar settlement SPLC paid to Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz meant his lawsuit never went to trial. The reasons for the settlement have never been revealed.)

But SPLC was sloppy in smearing the Dustin Inman Society, and King saw an opening. So last year he filed suit…

Pease read the entire post at NRO.

The proposed tuition savings benefit would not apply to Americans

 

 

 

There they go again. A group of Republican state senators have signed on to a Democrat-led bill that would change state law on the current residency requirement to access instate tuition in public colleges. And the left-wing AJC is unapologetically pushing the bill in its opinion posts with agenda-driven misinformation.  

At issue is Senate Bill 264 sponsored by Stone Mountain Democrat Sen. Kim Jackson. The number two signer on the bill is Republican Sen. Mike Dugan of Carrollton. The other two Republican cosponsors are Sens. Billy Hickman (Statesboro) and Chuck Payne (Dalton).

The legislation is in the Senate Higher Education committee where Hickman is the chairman and Payne is a member. Hickman held an initial hearing on it after Crossover Day and with a question to the sponsor proved he didn’t understand the bill he had signed as a cosponsor. So did Payne. (transcript here).  

If passed and signed into law by Governor Kemp, the bill would amend the current requirement that all new Georgia residents must live here for a year before they can access the much lower instate tuition rate in our public colleges and technical schools. 

But the proposed change would not apply to Americans.  

The Democrat legislation these Republicans are pushing only applies to foreigners with refugee or “special immigrant” status along with otherwise illegal aliens who the Biden administration moves into the U.S. as recipients of temporary “Humanitarian Parole.” All of these categories create legal immigration status for the recipient. 

Under SB 264 there would be a carve-out allowing this group to “migrate” to Georgia from other countries and access instate tuition rates upon arrival. They would not have a twelve-month residency waiting period as do Americans. 

U.S. citizens moving here from other states would still pay the much higher out of state tuition rate for their first year as a new Georgian. 

A rerun of a failed Republican-led House bill (HB 932) from the 2022 session, it’s difficult not to refer to this gem as another “Americans last bill.’ Insider Advantage readers with good memories may recall my colleague Inger Eberhart’s 2022 guest column (‘Vote on HB 932 Putting Refugees Ahead of Americans’) daring the House Higher education committee to pass it out. Inger explained that bill with “In the recent hearing on HB 932 several Democrats vocalized their enthusiastic support for making Americans pay three times more public college tuition than an Afghan refugee in Georgia.”  

Exactly how much more tuition would an American pay in our public colleges than foreign nationals?  

In Dalton: According to the Dalton State College website, for on campus students the estimated tuition and fees per semester is $2,123.00 for instate tuition. It’s $6,334.00 for students being charged the out-of-state rate. That’s a difference of $4211.00 per semester if my American math is correct. 

In Statesboro: As per the Georgia Southern University website, instate tuition for undergraduates was $2732.00 for fifteen hours in the Fall 2022 semester and $9641.00 for out-of-state rate (it’s the same for Spring, and Summer 2023). That is a difference of $6909.00 per semester. 

Our guess is that cosponsoring SB 264 wasn’t at the top of any “end of session at the Gold Dome wrap up” presentation at grassroots GOP meetings for Hickman or Payne. 

There is a Democrat companion bill in the House, HB 640, with one GOP cosigner. They are both being pushed by the leftist Coalition of Refugee Service Agencies (CRSA), the Business and Immigration Partnership for Georgia (BIG), Mark Zuckerburg’s FWD.us and – less openly, by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. The FWD.us lobbyist under the Gold Dome is an illegal alien. 

You read it here first, but there is more to the story. 

A version of the above column was posted on the subscription website Insider Advantage on June 8, 2023.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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