The below column is published in the February edition of the Star News serving Carroll County.
Carroll County Rep J. Collins cosigner on an well-written transparency legislation, HB 131
A reminder: Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than Arizona. More illegals than green card holders live here. That population could be greatly reduced if some of the Republicans elected to represent Americans in Georgia were more concerned about their voters than the Georgia Chamber of Commerce – led special interest lobby. I blame the docile voters as much as the wayward politicians.
On that, let’s do some “good news, bad news” on illegal immigration in Georgia.
Carroll County
Bad news for the Carroll County Board of Commissioners: The sheriff passed on my 2022 complaints citing clear examples of literally thousands of BOC violations of state law aimed at illegal immigration to the Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney.
Good news for the BOC: Despite the documented admissions of those violations by county attorneys, the District Attorney decided that since the policies that created the violations had been slowly corrected, he would not pursue the complaints. The law says that if official agencies are caught violating the laws designed to keep public benefits from illegal aliens, they can correct those policies in “good faith” (no time limit) without any worries about sanctions.
The BOC et al ignored the documented violations for almost a year and only acted to get in compliance when the sheriff got involved. Many thanks to Sheriff Langley and his staff.
More good news for the BOC: The District Attorney says that despite the BOC and the county attorneys arrogantly ignoring my warnings of non-compliance for nearly a year, their lazy and uninformed effort to slowly correct the illegal policies counts as a “good faith” effort at correction.
The Carroll County government had been in violation of the laws I cited in my complaints for about a decade. The District Attorney has a very different idea of “good faith” than this writer.
I can’t recommend spending much time looking for laws that allow common citizen voters to get off the prosecution hook if they simply say “oopsie” and finally move to undo a violation to escape punishment.
More good news for the BOC: The office of Attorney General Chris Carr agreed with the District Attorney.
Bad news for open borders Democrat voters and good news for conservative, pro-enforcement voters in Carroll County: As far as I can tell, because of my complaints, scrutiny and education, the Carroll County BOC is now administering public benefits according to the law for the first time. You’re welcome.
Bad news for Georgia: I haven’t heard any demand for a change in the public benefits laws from voters or any offer to correct the ridiculous loophole in the law by any Carroll County state legislators …or from Gov. Kemp.
The Gold Dome
HB 136
Some good news for pro-enforcement voters on “criminal aliens:” HB 136 has been filed and will go to the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee soon. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jesse Petrea (R- Savannah) would require the state Dept. of Corrections to post a quarterly, public report that shows the number of foreign nationals in the state prison system; their immigration status; offenses and home countries. The report would illustrate the percentage of inmates who are not United States citizens in the total prison system population.
Carroll County Republican Rep. J. Collins is a cosponsor of HB 136 and is Chairman of the House Public Safety Committee. He should be thanked for his support. You may want to ask him about helping with a bill to correct the holes in the public benefits laws discussed above. I will do both.
HB 136 is bad news for the politicians from both parties that pretend illegal immigration, and “undocumented workers” are somehow not “an issue.” HB 136 will illustrate the inherent dangers and preventable misery illegal immigration and “criminal illegals” inflict on innocent Georgians. And it will offer a method to figure the cost of illegal on our prison budget…if it were to pass.
The same bill was allowed to die in 2019 by the Republicans who controlled the House Rules committee. One Democrat said tracking illegal immigration in Georgia prisons could “start a race war…”
“School choice”
Bad news: Under the banner of “school choice!” many Republicans in and out of government are pushing to reward and encourage illegal immigration into Georgia by passing a bill that would create a state benefit that pays private school tuition for illegal alien K-12 students and families. The simple – and sane — solution to having “school choice” and not cater to the open borders lobby is to make the new state benefit open only to U.S. citizens and green card holders.
The national “universal school choice” movement is led by a man named Corey DeAngleis. DeAngelis refuses to acknowledge the very existence of the raging border crisis or illegal immigration in the U.S. He is also connected to something called the “Cato Institute.” For readers who are not aware of the Cato agenda, you may want to see one of their position papers entitled “Forget the Wall Already, It’s Time for the U.S. to Have Open Borders.”
That may help explain the insistence on including illegal aliens in “school choice for all students!”
HB 131
Very bad news from Dalton Republican Kasey Carpenter for struggling college students around the nation who want to attend public colleges in Georgia. Along with a list of Democrat and Republican sponsors, Carpenter’s HB 131 would change state law so that illegal aliens could attend Georgia’s public colleges and technical schools at a much lower tuition rate than American citizens and legal immigrants from other states. The concept is being pushed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
Voters can remain silent on all of this. But silence is consent.
This column was written on Feb 1, 2023.
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