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Updated – Libertarian pushed Gold Dome ‘reciprocity’ bill (HB147) would dismantle screening process for illegal aliens accessing professional licenses *UPDATED WITH ADDITION OF IDENTICAL SENATE BILL (SB45) INFO

February 10, 2021 By D.A. King

Because of a mixup here (entirely my fault), the fact that the below ‘reciprocity’ bill (HB 147) has an identical companion bill in the state senate was left out of the write-up. SB 45 has all the same problems and “free market” lobbyist drivers as HB 147. The text of SB 45 is here as are all of the sponsors. I was told there would be an amendment to require any reciprocity for professional licenses to adhere to the intent and language of existing verification law. ~~I do not see an amendment reflected in this official current version of the bill.~~

Update: 4:50 PM Feb 11. – SB 45 has been amended (lines 45 & 46. You may need to hit refresh) to require compliance with the verifciation system in OCGA 50-36-1. We are grateful to Sen. Bruce Thompson.

To save time and confusion we list the sponsors – dak:

Thompson, Bruce 14th

2. Albers, John 56th

3. Gooch, Steve 51st

4. Mullis, Jeff 53rd

5. Beach, Brandon 21st

6. Cowsert, Bill 46th

7. Payne, Chuck 54th

8. Anavitarte, Jason 31st

9. Dugan, Mike 30th

10. Harbin, Marty 16th

11. Hickman, Billy 4th

12. McNeill, Sheila

“The legislation is a rerun of a very similar bill last year from now-departed Rep Scot Turner (R- Holly Springs) that expired due to an excessive amount of scrutiny.”

Republicans calling themselves conservatives while proudly espousing “free markets” should not be allowed to ignore the fact that Georgia and the U.S. have a debilitating illegal immigration problem. One that is on its way to record and epic national proportions under the Biden Regime while it is totally ignored here by Governor “I have a Big Truck” Brian Kemp.

Under Georgia’s Gold Dome, Rep Heath Clark (R – Warner Robins) has introduced HB 147 that we are reliably informed is the work of Marc Hyden who is Director of State Government Affairs at the Libertarian Washington D.C. lobbying entity called ‘R Street” (“Free markets. Real solutions”). The bill is aimed at “reciprocity” in professional licensing. The nutshell explanation of the idea is that if an individual who holds a professional license in any other state relocates to Georgia, most of the current professional licensing process is waived.

Shorter: “Ya’ll come! If you or your employees have already been licensed by California, New York or any other state, we fast-track professional licensing and put your company to work in a flash, because “number one for business!”

Clark has lined up a list of Republican co-signers who we are guessing don’t spend a lot of time thinking about illegal immigration or the fact that illegal employment is the main driver behind Georgia being home to more “undocumented workers” than green card holders.

With the thought that more voters should read pending legislation, along with a list of co-sponsors, below is the active ingredient in Rep Heath Clark & Co.’s bill:

HB 147

LC 36 4490

Sponsor: Rep Heath Clark ( R-Warner Robbins)

Visible Co-sponsors

Rep Rick Jasperse (R- Jasper)

Rep Bruce Williamson (R-Monroe)

Rep Dale Washburn (R-Macon)

Rep Chuck Martin (R- Alpharetta)

Rep Wes Cantrell (R-Woodstock)

Beginning on line 33

“Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, a professional licensing board or other

board shall issue a license by endorsement to any individual that:

Moves from another state and establishes residency in this state;

Holds a current license to practice such occupation or profession issued by another

state that was acquired prior to moving from another state and establishing residency in

this state for which the training, experience, and testing are substantially similar in

qualifications and scope to the requirements under this state to obtain a license;

Is in good standing in such other state; and

Passes any examination that may only be required to demonstrate knowledge of the

laws and rules and regulations of this state specific to the practice of the profession,

business, or trade for which such license by endorsement is being sought…”

*Emphasis mine. dak

The legislation is a rerun of a very similar bill last year from now-departed Rep Scot Turner (R- Holly Springs) that expired due to an excessive amount of scrutiny.

Apparently either nobody involved with Clark’s dollar-first legislation has given thought to illegal immigration – or they just don’t care.

Current state law screens professional license applicants for U.S. citizenship or immigration status. If the entire law (OCGA 50-36-1) were actually enforced, it would go a long way to reducing the illegal population. Professional licenses are on the list of ‘public benefits’ in Georgia code that this writer has been involved with creating, improving and protecting since 2006. Not always successfully.

HB 147 would end screening process for immigration status

If Clark and his co-sponsors were to be successful in putting the R Street ‘free market’ reciprocity ideology into state law as currently written , the process for screening out black market labor goes away. It is indisputable that making life difficult for illegal immigration results in a reduction of illegal aliens and HB 147 makes Georgia more hospitable to that group.

Shorter: “So what even more illegal aliens are flocking to Georgia to set up businesses to hire more illegal aliens – we are making mo’ money and are number one for business!”

Clark’s bill is gathering growing criticism. Dismantling longstanding state law aimed at preventing black market labor from accessing professional licenses is not a “real solution” to the fact that American families are struggling to make ends meet.

The slippery slope theory in politics dictates that soon after a bill like HB147 becomes law we would watch as the same reciprocity concept will be pushed for foreign-issued professional licenses.

International reciprocity on drivers licenses already here

Most Georgians have no idea that while we do still require a vision test, the Georgia Department of Drivers Services (DDS) already does reciprocity for drivers licenses issued by the Republic of South Korea. Because “number one for business…”

Atlanta Journal Constitution editors still mum on Georgia law in yet another celebratory infomercial on demise of 287(g) in Cobb & Gwinnett – AJC

February 9, 2021 By D.A. King

AJC publisher and senior editors. Photo: DIS from sources as noted.

From the opening paragraph of a February 2, 2021 AJC report (Cobb, Gwinnett end 287(g) immigration programs, work to build trust) which was one of several celebratory ‘news’ hits since Democrat sheriffs ended 287(g) in two metro-Atlanta counties.

“Maria hasn’t seen her son since he was deported to Mexico in 2009 after an arrest for driving without a license. She’s never met her two granddaughters. She doesn’t know if she ever will.

Like thousands of others in Gwinnett County, Jorge Alejandro Pineda was deported through a program known as 287(g). The program allows jailers to check inmates’ immigration status and share that information with U.S. customs officials, who can initiate deportation proceedings regardless of whether a crime was committed.”

The February 8, 2021 front page, dead tree version is headlined “Cobb, Gwinnett shift immigration priorities.” The anti-enforcement lobby’s moldy objection to jails – the only place 287(g) was used in either Cobb or Gwinnett counties – checking immigration status of incoming prisoners somehow inhibits victims of crime on the street from reporting those crimes is embedded throughout. It’s an infomercial. Again.

The editors at the liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) have apparently finally seen the most recent stats from ICE on the 287(g) program. Taking care to omit a very relevant fact they desperately want to keep silent (further down), they have come up with yet another biased and incomplete, anti-enforcement celebratory gift to the crazies. Crime will increase in these counties as a result. We do not expect the AJC editors to allow coverage of that eventuality.

The Center for Immigration Studies put the 287(g) ICE data up weeks ago and we have already reposted it (From CIS: New Numbers Show Effectiveness of Cancelled 287(g) Program in Two Georgia Counties). We regarded the stats as a positive. Not so much at the “credible, compelling, complete” AJC.

As Americans trying to save lives and the rule of law on the crime of illegal immigration, we were pleased to have successfully fought to implement 287(g) in Georgia.

The latest AJC piece looks like a response requested by the Gwinnett and Cobb sheriffs to our pro-enforcement education piece recently posted statewide on the subscription outlet IAG. That opinion began:

“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.”

We headlined our work with one of the facts the AJC and the Associated Press have so far kept secret Ga. Law: Jailers must report incarcerated illegal aliens to feds and re-posted it on the Dustin Inman Society website.

Led by Editor-in-Chief Kevin Riley, Managing Editor Mark Waligore, Deputy Managing Editor Leroy Chapman Jr. and publisher Donna B. Hall, the AJC is an agenda-driven liberal newspaper with zero pretenses. But it’s more than that. In the political battle to protect illegal aliens – potential Democrat voters – they struggle to stay away from the stats that show how many murders, rapes, kidnappings and child molestations for which illegal aliens are jailed. American lives mean little at the AJC.

They are happy to hide the reality that additional crime or not, all illegal aliens are removable and to promote the dangerous “let’s wait until the victims of borders actually hurt or kill someone before we start talking about deportation – wouldn’t want to separate illegal alien families…”

Kevin Riley & Co. is careful to stay away from the fact that 287(g) jail records reveal immigrants not deported after minor crimes later commit worse ones.”

With the election of Joe Biden and the Riley’s growing arrogance, the days of the AJC allowing pro-enforcement dissent on their pages with published letters to the editor or guest opinion pieces are over.

It takes a long memory and the Wayback Machine to find examples, but there was a day when the AJC would report on 287(g) successes. Like this one: “Gwinnett says immigration program is working.”

We’ll add this note of the most recent AJC victory-lap write up to our file.

The AJC’s brazen anti-enforcement agenda is as responsible for the permanent separation of innocent American families in their own country and our state’s slide to having become Georgiafornia as anything else – including Gov. Brian Kemp and his #BigTruckTrick ©.

The Georgia Department of Corrections has a 287(g) agreement in the prison system. We predict it’s only a matter of time until the liberal AJC goes after that arrangement.

Two Republican state Reps reflect on helping foreign workers vs Democrat U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer unemployment quote

February 5, 2021 By D.A. King

Two GA Republican state House members and Democrat Congressman Steny Hoyer give us all something to think about on priorities, jobs and American workers.

Hoyer first, from his twitter feed Feb 4, 2021:

Now, the Georgia Republicans from a February 5, 2021 report (“Committee would look at aid to foreign workers”) on a specially-formed Georgia House sub-committee meeting in today’s Insider Advantage Georgia, a subscription news outlet:

Georgia state Rep Wes Cantrell, (R) Woodstock:

State Representative Wes Cantrell (R- Woodstock) believes one way to address workforce development in Georgia — specially as a result of the pandemic — is to establish a committee that would be tasked with looking at “innovative ways to maximize global talent in the state.”

“Throughout my term in office, I have heard a lot of talk about workforce development, but I believe one piece is missing,’ said Cantrell during the Small Business Development subcommittee meeting Thursday morning. “I think we need to look at foreign-born Georgians and try to determine what is hindering them from getting good jobs. Is it outdated regulations, is it inappropriate barriers that need to be removed? Whatever the cause we need to identify the barriers and find ways to resolve the issue.”

Georgia state Rep Steve Tarvin, (R) Chickamauga

“I am convinced that we can’t make it without the labor force from other countries,” said Representative Steve Tarvin (R-Chickamauga), who followed this by asking for clarification on “the hindrances to gainful employment for foreign-born Georgians.”

For the uninitiated, this is a dollar-first agenda likely aimed at ending or further gutting the state’s occupational licensing and/or E-Verify laws, which make many employers uncomfortable, but are not actually enforced – or even mentioned by the Georgia GOP establishment led by Gov. Brian Kemp.

Why Biden’s Immigration Plan is Flawed – Mark Krikorian

January 31, 2021 By D.A. King

Open borders radicals protest immigration laws and borders, 2020. PHOTO: TWITTER

The radicalization of even the mainstream Left on immigration makes concessions—routine in prior amnesty proposals—unthinkable no

From The National Interest

By Mark Krikorian

January 29, 2021

The Biden administration made a show of proposing sweeping legislation that would legalize virtually all illegal aliens and enact a variety of measures to weaken immigration enforcement and increase legal immigration beyond the current level of about 1 million a year. This was no vague statement of principles—congressional staff received a fifty-nine-page, section-by-section summary of the bill.

But the bill has yet to be actually introduced in Congress. And it may never be.

That’s because, with an almost evenly divided Congress, it has no chance of passage. The bill was proposed on the president’s first day in office to satisfy a campaign pledge and as a gesture of solidarity with the party’s most radical anti-borders activists.

This is not to say there will be no congressional push for the tripartite immigration goals of the left (and its corporate and libertarian fellow-travelers): amnesty, hobbled enforcement, and more immigration. But the administration, congressional Democrats, and activists confessed to Politico recently that a series of smaller measures is more likely.

1. Adults who came as minors—the so-called Dreamers, including that subset who received DACA, the Obama administration’s amnesty-lite program to provide work permits and Social Security numbers, but not a path to citizenship;

3. So-called “essential workers” such as farm workers.

While ten Republicans could probably be found in the Senate to back some of these measures, even the most pusillanimous among them would demand some kind of meaningful strengthening of enforcement in return.

“Meaningful” is the operative word here; the days of giving the Border Patrol a few drones and calling it enforcement are over. For proposals that would legalize one-third to one-half of the illegal population to have any hope of gaining traction, they would have to include, at least, things like mandatory use of E-Verify (the online system to check the legal status of new hires is currently voluntary), and a prohibition on state and local sanctuary policies that shield foreign-national criminals from the immigration consequences of their law-breaking.

So, if Congress is likely to be the source of sound and fury signifying nothing on immigration, what is in the cards? Executive actions.

President Joe Biden is following in the footsteps of his two predecessors by focusing on the use of executive authority to make what changes he can. He has decreed an ostensibly temporary ban on deportations—though Republicans, having learned from the last four years of relentless lawfare against Trump, have succeeded for now in getting a federal judge to temporarily put that decree on hold.

Biden also lifted the so-called “Muslim ban,” which was, in reality, a qualified prohibition on visa issuance to citizens of countries (not all of them majority Muslim) whose governments are unable or unwilling to provide us information to allow the visa applicants to be vetted.

A third decree, like the others issued on the new president’s first day in office, halted construction on the border wall. This has left gaps in the fence, contracts in limbo, and stacks of expensive building materials piled up on the ground.

More decrees are expected, including a dramatic increase in refugee admissions; a move to make it easier for people likely to be dependent on welfare to get green cards;.. read the rest at thenationalinterest.org

Ga. Law: Jailers must report incarcerated illegal aliens to feds OCGA 42-4-14

January 27, 2021 By D.A. King

Longstanding (2006 – Gov Kemp voted for it as a state senator) 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.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Excerpt: “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.”

Note: The below column was originally posted on the subscription news outlet Insider Advantage Georgia website

By D.A. King

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.

Sheriffs Craig Owens, Cobb County (L) and Keebo Taylor, Gwinnett County (R). Photo WSB TV/Twitter

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 in a 2007 traffic crash by an unlicensed illegal alien driver – 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 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.

In Gwinnett, 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 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.

Is long-standing Ga. law being enforced?

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.”

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