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GA House Public Safety Committee hearing on HB 1105, (Friday) Feb. 16, 2004

VIDEO HERE.

Transcript by Rev.com My cost, $24.00 and two hours of my time – not counting attendance at the hearing.

Committee chair:
… want to speak, uh-

Terry Norris:
Sure.

Committee chair:
… to this bill. So, uh, I know that, uh, Terry Norris back there wants to speak to the bill.

Terry Norris:
Sure.

Committee chair:
I’m sure Mr. D.A. King wants to speak to the bill, so. And anyone else wish to speak to the bill today? Okay. D.A., if you’d like to go first, come up to the podium, please.

D.A. King:
I’ll let Terry go first.

Committee chair:
I think your hair might be a little longer up here, so we’ll let you-

D.A. King:
(laughs).

Committee chair:
[inaudible 00:00:37].

Speaker 4:
Mr. Chairman, I have a pass-out. Is that okay?

Committee chair:
Certainly. Mr. King, I certainly appreciate you being here. You’re always welcome to testify to this committee. We look forward to having, hearing what you have to say. Um, but I wanna remind you that it’s 11 o’clock on Friday, and-

D.A. King:
(laughs).

Committee chair:
… everybody’s been working hard this week, and we wanna get home, and-

D.A. King:
I’m, I’m acquainted with the, with the concept.

Committee chair:
So, thank you Chairman.

D.A. King:
Thank you. , I’m D.A. King, I’m President of the Dustin Inman Society. I’ve been on this campus since, for a very long time. I would like to say I had hair when I first got here, but I didn’t. This is my 19th session. I was here when we drafted this original law in 2006. I helped work on it in 2000-, I think, and nine. And again, in 2011. When it was drafted, the goal was to create a plan B for the 287-G program. I hope everyone knows what that is, but the whole goal here when we originally constructed the law was to simply put in place a system by which criminal aliens could be detected and reported to the federal authorities.
Uh, I don’t know what’s been presented so far, but I can tell you having been here, that it never occurred to us that there would need to be penalty involved, because it didn’t occur to us that the jailers would not comply with the law. So I have been doing for several years, open records requests, checking on compliance. And there was a great deal of difficulty in that process, because some jails don’t reply, and some jails simply tell me that, “we don’t have any paperwork or documents that will reflect compliance with this law.”
Now, I am told, and I don’t wanna pretend like I’m an expert on the interior operations of law enforcement. But I am told that there are documents and records that are not allowed to be shared that are, uh, law enforcement sensitive. The most recent case that I have done is, a hit and run perpetrator in Gwinnett County, was put in the Gwinnett County Jail on February the 7th. The charges were hit and run, no license, failure to report an accident. So with a series of open records requests, and I’ve gotten accustomed to doing this, because I’ve been doing it for several years, and I can’t remember how many I’ve done, more than 10 or 15.
The bottom line to me going and finding somebody that may or may not be in the country illegally, or at least being a foreign national. Getting an open records request to get amo-, as much information on that as I could, and then getting an additional arrest report from the arresting agency, and then seeing if the individual is in fact foreign born and would fall under the requirements of the law that you’re trying to change. Um, the final result on this most recent case was, when I asked for any documents or records, electronic or written, that will indicate compliance with 42414, I got back the same reply that I’ve always gotten when I get a reply, and that is, we have no records that are relevant to your request.
There is a system in this bill that will construct the systems so that A, the jailer would be attesting to self-compliance, and there would be a records trail for someone who comes behind me, to actually check on compliance and verify that, that, that the law is being obeyed. And, with the penalties involved, we hope that that will, will eventually happen. I, I wanna be quick. If anybody has any questions, that’s pretty much all I have to say.

Committee chair:
Do you have a question, Representative Evans?

Representative Evans:
Thank you Chairman. Yeah, I’m sorry, can you tell me your name one more time, and organization you’re with, please?

D.A. King:
I’m, I’m sorry, say again?

Representative Evans:
I just wanna know your name and organization. I didn’t, uh, write it down, when you first [inaudible 00:04:57].

D.A. King:
Oh, sorry. I was, I was speaking Friday fast. It’s the Dustin, D-U-S-T-I-N, Inman, I-N-M-A-N, Society. We are a 501-C4, under the IRS rules. We’ve been formed since 2005. We are made up of a variety of Americans, including real legal immigrants, and people of every hue and color. If I may, the Dustin Inman Society is named after a young man from Woodstock, Georgia, who was 16 years old forever, because he was killed when an illegal alien, to whom someone had given a job, benefits and services, crashed into the back of the Inman family car on Father’s Day weekend, the year 2000.
That wreck killed Dustin, put his mom and dad into a coma, his mom for several weeks. And when the parents woke up, they were told their only child was gone. Both of the parents have gone now, as a delayed reaction, and result of the crash I just told you about.

Committee chair:
So any other questions about specific, this bill, Ms. Evans, towards, uh, Mr. King? Uh, Representative Petrie? No?

Representative Petrie:
Yeah, I’m good.

Committee chair:
Okay, all right. Any other questions or comments towards, uh, Mr. King at this time? All right. Thank you very much.

D.A. King:
Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Committee chair:
Sure, appreciate you. We’ll call on our friend, Terry Norris, from the Sheriff’s Association now. Tell us what you don’t like about this bill.

Terry Norris:
How’d you know? No, uh, I am Terry Norris. I’m Executive Director of the Georgia Sheriff’s Association. Um, this is my 42nd year, D.A.. Uh, in some ways, I knew more about the legislative process in 1982, than I do in 2024, but I’m learning. So, uh, I’m not here to oppose the bill. Uh, we agree, uh, through our practice at the Association, our training, and as we had mentioned, uh, and through our, um, office of the Sheriff Accreditation Program, uh, certainly that we agree with current law which requires sheriffs to report to ICE on those illegals arrested.
And before I continue I wanna thank, uh, Representative Petrie. Uh, he, we had several meetings and conversations about the bill. Some of our thoughts did not make it to the bill, and I’ll express those to you today, but I don’t… we, we don’t oppose in any way bringing this bill forth for conversation. So we agree with the fact that we should obey the law, comply with the law. Um, but we disagree in a couple of ways. Uh, criminalizing this, uh, is a little bit of an overstep.
There’s currently in the law, under I think, um, Count 15-16-26, where the governor can empanel a committee of two sheriffs and the Attorney General to look at cases where sheriffs are accused of, um, violating the law, malfeasance, uh, [inaudible 00:08:05], et cetera. And that panel has been used throughout the years. So there is a, a current, uh, ability to look at a sheriff who may not be complying with this or any other law.
The, uh, the second thing is, about the report to Department of Audits. Uh, and I’ll say this, and I don’t mean to offend the State or what the State does in terms of appropriating funds throughout the state. But, the State does not fund jails. Jails are highly expensive. Uh, jails are physically, the jails are owned by the County Governing Authorities. The people that are in jail are under the custody, care, safety of the sheriff. The sheriff has sole custody of those people, and we expect the sheriffs to comply with reporting to ICE, as I have said, as it is in the, in current law.
Um, but, many of you who have been around a little while remember, up until last year I believe it was, the Department of Community Affairs compiled a monthly jail report. That jail report was a simple report. It didn’t go very far. Uh, that was discontinued, and we at the Sheriff’s Association, at the, the instruction of the sheriffs, was to create a more robust reporting of sheriff’s jail activities, and we have done that. It is still evolving. Uh, frankly, it is not, uh, currently part of reporting to ID the people we’re talking about here, but that is in the plans.
So, we wanna go further in our general report. And part of the reason that we want to, is we want you all to know who, or who is in county jails, why are they in there. And frankly, a lot of people in county jails right now, um, are, prior to criminal justice reforms, would’ve been in prisons. So what we, what happens when we put people in county jails? Most of the time, almost extensively, the cost of county jails are bore by the local property tax payers. So when we leave people in county jails that might, should be in the state prison system, we’re causing our local property taxpayers to pay the costs of mental health, drugs, all sorts of things.
So I, I say all that, I know I digressed a little bit there. But I say all that to let you know that we are very proud of the product we’re developing on jail reports, and that jail report is done honestly, to let y’all know what’s going on. So there is absolutely, in a sheriff’s opinion, no reason to expect them to report to audit, Department of Audits, or anyone else in the state on this matter.
A footnote to that also is this. They are, they’re pretty compliant with us, with reporting. We’re asking them to report all sorts of things, mental health, transports, who’s in jail with mental health issues, et cetera. So, I urge you to consider our offer to uh, make this report even more effective, and um, informative for everybody, before we start talking about pushing some sort of report of jail data to, to the State. And that’s really all. We’re not trying to be a, uh, uh, in opposition of the bill. But those are the matters that we have concerns with.

Committee chair:
Any questions for, uh, Mr. Norris? I have one question, uh, but we’ll take, um, Representative Cummings, first.

Representative Cummings:
Um, thank you Chair. I have one question. If a sheriff is found, um, guilty of a misdemeanor of a higher aggravated nature, the way it’s described in this bill, how would that impact his job, or his career?

Terry Norris:
That is not cause for immediate, uh, vacancy of the office. In other words, he, he could be suspended, uh, and he could be suspended under the provision that I said, well, I mentioned a while ago. And that was the two, um, sheriffs and the Attorney General. So if there was a, a charge of a misdemeanor, and there was a conviction of a misdemeanor, then that panel could, uh… and there would be obviously a probated sentence or something of that nature. But the, the governor could still empanel the two sheriffs and the AG to look at that conviction or that case, and determine where there was a suspension. And the sus-, the suspension is 60 days up to 90 days under current law.

Representative Cummings:
Okay, thank you.

Terry Norris:
Yes ma’am.

Committee chair:
All right, Mr. Norris. Let me ask you this question. We kind of talked about this offline a little bit. You, you may agree with this or may not. But if you removed that penalty of, of being a misdemeanor, and maybe added that, uh, it was a violation of oath of office, not to comply, would that be amenable to sheriff’s office, Sheriff’s Association?

Terry Norris:
I, I think much more so, and frankly, with, it’s a good point, because with election season coming up, it really affects their concerns about being re-elected. So I would say so, yes sir.

Committee chair:
So that might be something we could take into consideration to maybe, uh, remove some of the heartburn that you have, where that, uh, that proportion of a misdemeanor-

Terry Norris:
Yes, that would be.

Committee chair:
… is removed.

Terry Norris:
When we were already talking about this. We’re pleased to continue to work with our friend, Representative Petrie.

Representative Petrie:
Representative, if I may. So, uh, I actually brought that up, and discussed that as I went through a multitude of options. I had a little bit of a difficult time [inaudible 00:13:49] council understanding how it would, um, adequately impact what we’re trying to do. But, I do wanna make it clear, we did discuss that, and, and um, Mr. Norris has been most helpful throughout all of these conversations from day one. A year ago we started on this, and he’s been very forthright with me in acknowledging that I think in one conversation, we had, we know that 89 sheriffs out of 159 acknowledge, that’s just one particular point in time, that they were doing this.
But we’ve got 159 sheriffs in the state.

Committee chair:
Right.

Representative Petrie:
So, we, we… I think we, we understand that a lot of sheriffs, but not all for bad reasons, but, that are not doing this. We need to compel them to do that, and yes, to… if that’s what we’re trying to do here. And so the reason we put the misdemeanor behind aggravated nature was to make sure that we do this. I wanna read, uh, I wanna read something Mr. Chairman, with your permission.

Committee chair:
Please, by all means.

Representative Petrie:
This is what I’m trying… I wanna make sure everyone here is, is clear on what I’m trying to do. This is a quote, um, from the Gwinnett County Sheriff, uh, Keybo Taylor I think, on January 1 of 2021. Quote, “what we will not be doing is notifying ICE of anybody’s immigration status in the jail or any of our facilities.” So, again, that’s uh, I mean… you know, so we need to either find a way to require, if nobody else, our sheriffs to follow the law. Or, we need to… or, or we can just, as a body, we can take up repealing the law. Maybe we should say, “hey, sheriffs shouldn’t have to do this.”
But it seems to me, we should do one or the other. So uh, but Mr. Norris has been most helpful, and um, we, we need to find a way to solve the problem. He has been very helpful from day one, in having these conversations. I’ve brought up a multitude of ideas, and that was one of them.

Committee chair:
Representative, Chairman Taylor there, yeah.

Representative Chairman Taylor:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think all, all of us, um, have constituents that are very concerned about this particular issue. Um, there is a big issue and problem when people whose job it is to enforce a law, if we don’t have the rules follow, it permeates through our whole society. And that’s what’s happening. This is a leadership position that is coming right out and, I’m not gonna obey the law. And I think that’s our job, to see that that doesn’t happen. We, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing, and address those issues. Um, it, it wouldn’t matter what the others issues are if we, if a DUI? He has to follow the rules just like anything else.
And this is an issue right now that is of concern to everybody. If the law says you have to arrest everybody that’s drunk or whatever the law is, he’s supposed to do it, and it’s the same thing. You’re right, either take it off the books, so don’t have any law, or else, follow the law. We’re teaching young people, don’t follow the law, when we do things like that, thank you.

Committee chair:
Absolutely. Very, very valid points there. Uh, let’s see. Number 16? Representative Cummings, do you have another question?

Representative Cummings:
Yeah, thank you. I just want to know, is there currently a federal penalty if the sheriff doesn’t submit the report? Is there like, a withholding of funds or something like that?

Representative Petrie:
No, representative. Not that I’m aware of. Um, there’s not a federal penalty. And, and again, we’re, so we’re trying to deal with a penalty for a state law. The feds certainly want us to report. They use, and I know, um, uh, the Chairman over here would re-… the LESC, this, uh, that all law enforcement use the, the reporting as I understand, from talking to my sheriff is, is, is very simple. My sheriff who by the way made it very clear to me, we do this, it’s easy. No-… he actually (laughs), my sheriff reviewed the bill and said, I understand it.
So um, I don’t want to be just intentionally punitive. All, I… the goal is very simple. If we have the law, let’s see that sheriffs are doing it. If, if they… I, I… how do we compel them to do that? And if we don’t want that, then let’s just, you know, then let’s, let’s somebody drop a bill to eliminate the requirement. But that’s a good question.

Committee chair:
Yeah, I think, I think that there is… as the Chairman of the Committee, and following you, uh, Chairman Petrie, I know you, you’re very well versed, uh, on uh, immigration and, and those uh, this issue. And, and it’s becoming more of an issue, and I think the constituency around this state, regardless of where you live. It’s an issue in just about every zip code, uh, throughout the state as you pointed out several times. We have more illegal aliens here in our state than in the State of Arizona.

Representative Petrie:
That is correct.

Committee chair:
And uh, just having access to this information I think is vitally important to the public safety of this state. And um, Mr. Norris, I wanted to ask one more question of you. This is not a burden that’s gonna bog down sheriff’s offices across this state, to provide this information, and it’s not gonna be an undue burden that, that’s gonna make it difficult for a sheriff to perform their duties. It’s just simply a, a clerical type procedure. Is that correct?

Terry Norris:
To, to report, I think the bill goes a little bit further, talks about reporting jail population-

Committee chair:
Right.

Terry Norris:
… and um, we struggle a little bit. To an-, the short answer is, no. Not too much. The longer answer is, each jail has an information or a, a data management system. A software system that deals with that jail population, and there are a number of companies that provide that. So, in doing our jail report, which is, will be much more comprehensive than what we’re talking about here, even to do that, we’ve had to stop and get these, um, this data integrated, so that it can be submitted to us.
So I, I… for the most part, I’d say no, but it could be an issue. Dealing, if you’re talking about the Department of Audits, and again that is, is not something that we wanna see happen, uh, we think we can do it better through us. And again, we wanna share that, but I think it would be a little bit of a, a challenge to go within. Unless you’re talking about just a printed piece of paper, this is how many people we had this month in there. We could probably give you that pretty easily.

Committee chair:
Ms. Evans, did you have another question? Representative Evans, I’m sorry.

Representative Evans:
Thank you Mr. Chairman, yes, thank you. Um, and uh, I’m so glad we had these folks here today. I wonder, did the Project South people know about this committee hearing this afternoon? The people who brought us this letter that was distributed? Did they know about the committee hearing this afternoon?

Committee chair:
Which, which letter are you referring to ma’am? I’m sorry, I can’t see that. Project South?

Representative Evans:
This is… it was a, there’s a group who I was handed a letter by Abby, that says, um-

Committee chair:
I’m not, I’m sorry.

Representative Evans:
… so I just wondered if they knew about this hearing, so they could come testify to us?

Committee chair:
I, I, I’m not certain.

Representative Evans:
Okay.

Committee chair:
I can’t speak to that. All, all meetings, all meetings are public.

Representative Evans:
All right, okay.

Committee chair:
Posted, and this, this was on the agenda for the last couple of days.

Representative Evans:
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I do have some questions since they’re not here, just that they pointed out, if I’d like to ask the Chairman.

Committee chair:
Go right ahead.

Representative Evans:
Would that be appropriate?

Committee chair:
Sure.

Representative Evans:
Okay, thank you. Um, so in this letter, they as-, they, uh, point out that, uh, this code session, [inaudible 00:21:01] mandates jails to publish a public report about immigrants. And they, they were pointing out that many times people in jail are just waiting in pre-te-, trial detention. And so, uh, uh, the question is, is does this also target individuals, people who have just merely been booked, and have not actually been convicted of anything? So, would that create a ske-… potentially a skewed number in the report? That was-

Representative Petrie:
Okay. So um, so there’s two… there’s two… Section 2 is about the st-, state prisons, and the corrections. Is that what they’re speaking to?

Representative Evans:
This is, they said Section 42-4-14.1.

Representative Petrie:
Okay, that’s under, okay, that’s under this measure. So that’s current law.

Representative Evans:
Mm-hmm.

Representative Petrie:
So, so um, what they’re speaking to is already current law. So the law already requires that, that which they’re asking. This, this, this really is about whether indeed the sheriffs are reporting that information to ICE, but the current law already requires that. And so, to that point, I don’t know, uh, if, if someone is um, it says here, if you’ll look at, uh-

Representative Evans:
What line there?

Representative Petrie:
… line 38. It says there’s a, you know, a reasonable effort shall be made to, uh, determine the nationality of the person so confined. Um, and it goes on to, in, in, in line 33 you see a definition of illegal alien. So I mean, it, this… that’s already, um, and, and then of course, what they do, you see on line 43 and on down, and talks about how, uh, by the way, all over this country, law enforcement reports to ICE. It’s through, um, the Law Enforcement Support Center, and that’s what I was speaking, uh, earlier, um, about. Our Chairman that was a long time member of Georgia State Patrol, uh, they use that for a multitude of things.
But that’s how they report this to the, to ICE. And so that’s already in the law, so I don’t know how to answer that beyond that.

Representative Evans:
Okay. Yep, so but it… so it would just have, it would have people who… anyone that’s in jail. So, ba-, basically you’re saying, so it would include people that have been accused of a crime but not convicted? ’cause that’s a lot of our jail population, right? So-

Representative Petrie:
Yeah, um, and that might be better for Terry to answer. Um-

Terry Norris:
Yes ma’am.

Representative Petrie:
Terry, go into that?

Terry Norris:
This, this, this is anybody that’s arrested.

Representative Evans:
Right.

Terry Norris:
Um, there’s a, in, in place, in a jail setting-

Representative Evans:
Mm-hmm.

Terry Norris:
… there is a criminal history record check, based on a fingerprint. That request goes through the Georgia Crime Information Center.

Representative Evans:
Mm-hmm.

Terry Norris:
They go through the federal agencies, and it comes back to us, that person is either here illegally or not. There’s actually a list of a few things that it, uh, checks off. So, yes, in the case of the sheriffs, the, certainly. These people are being, um, their records are being checked. Their, uh, status is being checked prior to any sort of conviction. Of course that’s the case.

Representative Evans:
Yeah.

Terry Norris:
And, um, jails are created to hold people who are awaiting trial.

Representative Evans:
Yes.

Terry Norris:
Unfortunately we do have people in jail because of criminal justice reform and other measures that stay there. Uh, and that was the point I was making a while ago.

Representative Evans:
Thank you.

Terry Norris:
Right, that’s all.

Representative Petrie:
And thank you Terry. And so, and, and again, the, the, the purpose, uh, is that if someone is here illegally, that the feds have an opportunity to see that. There may be something that alarms them. It could be a, um, an even bigger public ser-, uh, safety threat, or even a homeland security threat. And this is the reason that this is encouraged by, uh, by the federal agency, uh, of all states.

Committee chair:
I would encourage, uh, Representative Evans, if you have, I think, uh… Mr. D.A. King in the audience could make, uh, could help you with, with some of those questions that you have there, uh, about that organization and kind of repeat some of that, uh, information. And you can see him on, after the meeting off, offline if you don’t mind. Uh, we’ll go rep-, uh, recognize, uh, Chairman Taylor for another comment, then we’ll go and-

Representative Chairman Taylor:
Yeah, thank you.

Committee chair:
… wrap this up for today.

Representative Chairman Taylor:
Yeah, this is, um, just wrapping it up. Uh, anybody get, gets in jail is counted just like an occupancy. They’re counting it, just finding out who’s in there.

Committee chair:
Yeah.

Representative Chairman Taylor:
Um, and then further in the same letter, they talk about the officers. They don’t need training in immigration, that’s not what their job is. They’ve arrested them because they committed some type, or they’re suspected of it. And at that point, they have to be held, like anybody else. It doesn’t… they’re not trying to pick on one group. It’s just, if you’ve committed a crime, or have been identified as perhaps having one, you’ve gotta be accounted for. And I, I don’t, I don’t get this. I don’t, I don’t agree with what the things that, that they’ve said. Um, it, it just isn’t.
And they’re not… the officers, they are not making any determination-

Committee chair:
No.

Representative Chairman Taylor:
… on their eligibility at all. Like you said, it comes back on a fingerprint, so-

Committee chair:
That’s correct.

Representative Chairman Taylor:
… this is-

Representative Petrie:
And Mr. Chairman, I’d love to get a copy of the letter, ’cause I, I can’t respond to it, ’cause I haven’t seen it.

Committee chair:
Sure, sure.

Representative Petrie:
I, I’ll get it later. I don’t need it now.

Committee chair:
We’ll get it, okay.

Terry Norris:
Mr. Chairman, just to kind of close my piece out, of it out. On my point, remember. This, this is a check for status, is what this is. These people, whoever they are, have been charged with whatever offense. Most of the time, I think it’s a misdemeanor. A lot of the times, it’s a bad felony. So we’re checking for the status of this person, and that status, once we get the status, if it is one of those things, one of it being in the country illegally, then that notice to ICE goes. We’ve got Terry, he’s not here illegally, and he’s in our jail, and he’s been charged with speeding, ’cause I was a, I was a super speeder.
So ICE then determines whether they’re going to place a detainer on Terry. And, a detainer is different than a warrant. A detainer doesn’t always mean that ICE-

Committee chair:
That’s right.

Terry Norris:
… will ever pick that person up. So our rule of thumb is, we treat these folks like the Chairlady said, like anyone else that’s get, gets arrested. They’re entitled to bond, or to bond out of jail. And uh, with a warrant, 24 hours. Without a warrant, 48 hours. So if ICE hadn’t, hadn’t said, we’re coming to get this person, then they’re, they’re making bond like anybody else does. So, if that’s any clarity.

Committee chair:
Very good, thank you. I’ll let you have the last word, Chairman Petrie, before we close up.

Representative Petrie:
Yes sir, well thank you Mr. Chairman. I just wanna emphasize, as uh, Mr. Norris sits down, how helpful he, uh, indeed again, he has been. Listen, our sheriffs are some of our most respected members of, of all of our communities. And uh, but there are times in certain situations where uh, we may have some, uh, we know we have some that are, uh, refusing to follow current law. I just want us to find a solution to that, and that’s my goal here, and I appreciate you having the hearing, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate Mr. King, I appreciate Mr. Norris, uh, speaking as well, to provide a, a little more advocation on this topic.

Committee chair:
To the members of the committee, thank you so much for staying, hanging around here for a few moments after we adjourned on Friday. I certainly appreciate your willingness to be here, to help vet this legislation. Uh, there being no further business before this committee, we stand adjourned.

Transcript by Rev.com

My cost: $76.00 and about two hours, not counting the day in the Capitol.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

… a federal government to control illegal immigration affects the people we represent. And it affects their public safety sometimes. And we do have the ability to do this. We do have the ability to inform the citizens of this state of the degree to which criminal illegals in our state impacts their public safety. And so this bill is about just that. Do we want to make sure that without having to somehow, uh, submit a Freedom of Information Act, and try to discover how, how, how big this issue is from the department, do we wanna require the department to regularly, on a quarterly basis, simply post the aggregated data, no specifics, aggregated data on the degree to which this issue is a problem in this state?

So I’m gonna ask you now to look at, if all of you would look at this list of ICE detainers I gave you. So this is an example, it gives you a picture, basically, of what I want. There’s nobody’s name, there’s nothing. Now, as I said in the subcommittee, if you want specifics, you can look at every inmate in the system online. You can go and get their name, everything, where are they from, where com- they committed a crime, what they did. It’s not what I want. What I want is the people to have a snapshot of the problem or the lack of a problem. ‘Cause some people will tell you, you probably got some folks in this room that’ll tell you, “This isn’t a problem at all.” That’s okay. That’s their right. It’s not my job to interpret whether it’s a problem or not for others. I see this as my job to let you determine the degree of the problem so you can make your own decision about whether it’s a problem.

But I want you to look at this list, and I want you to see this aggregated format, and so when you look at this real simply, I want you to note here that there are, there are today, okay? And again, you may think, “Ah, it’s a low number.” You may think that’s a, a, a … an appalling number. I don’t know. But there are 230 child molesters who came to this country illegally, today, in Georgia, who molested children. Okay. There are, today, in our correctional system, 176 murders in our state correctional system. Okay? Who came to this country illegally first, that’s one thing, and then they subsequently committed a murder in the state of Georgia on the people we represent. Okay?

Keep going down the list. There’s 157 people who came to this country illegally, today, in the Georgia correctional system, who then subsequently raped someone, one of our constituents, in the state of Georgia and is now in our correctional system. Now, you may not be interested in knowing any of that, or caring. You may not believe that that was, as I call it, an avoidable crime. Maybe you don’t think that was an avoidable crime. I believe it was. And so I want this information to be made available to our people.

So I wanna make one thing clear, though, about this list, as I alluded to earlier. As you look at this list of 1,505, and I’m gonna give you an update on this, ’cause I want you to note at the top, this is December of this year. December, I mean, of 2022, December. But I want you to note something. My friends, this is not a list of all the criminal illegals in our Georgia correctional system. It is a list of those with ICE detainers. So let me explain now the conundrum, there. Why do I point that out?

I point that out because of this. I just want you to hear me. This is facts. In 2019, ICE issued 165,000 detainers in the United States. Okay? In 2022, ICE issued 78,000 detainers in the United States. ICE detainers have plummeted under the Biden administration. And in spite of the huge increases that everyone in this country, of every party, recognizes [inaudible 00:04:33] the last few years, there has been a 55% decrease in the number of detainers issued since 2019.

So, why do I tell you that? Because if you only have a list of ICE detainers, you don’t really have an accurate picture of what I’m trying to get at. What I’m trying to get at is how many illegal criminals are in this syste- uh, yeah, people illegally here are in our correctional system? If you only have ICE detainers, you have a subset of that. Now, because I can’t get that number from the department, I don’t know whether this is the … I, I hope this is the majority. But we don’t really know that. Okay? Because as you heard from the numbers I just mentioned, today, many people in the syst- the, the, the Feds are simply not issuing detainers on everyone. I hope that, I hope that makes sense.

So, uh, Mr. Chairman, there’s one last thing I’d like to mention, because there was a good question, uh, where is Representative Neal? She’s not here. She had some good questions. And I wanna mention this. Uh, today’s data, and when I say today, let me be clear again, I wanna be precise in everything I say, yesterday, (laughs) yesterday’s data, there were f- You see 1,505 here, of ICE detainers. There are now 1,532 today, yesterday. And to m- To Representative Neal’s very good gr- uh, question, eight of those are duplicated on this list. She asked about this list.

So there are eight. So there are really 1,524 on yesterday, criminal illegals in the Georgia correctional system with ICE detainers. I hope that’s clear. So there are eight duplications. So by and large, when you look at this list, yes, you’re looking at individuals. But there are occasionally a situ- eight times out of these 1,505, there is a duplication.

Okay. So there’s one last thing I’ll say beyond that, Mr. Chairman, that is this. This relates only to the Department of Corrections. Okay? So this has nothing to do with jails, your municipal or county jails, sheriffs, all of those things, that’s another matter. This is the issue that … This is an issue I think’s perfectly appropriate for us to address, ’cause this is our state correctional system. And the question at the end of the day is should the people, do the people have a right to know the degree to which this is, uh, affecting their public safety or not? That’s up to all of us to decide. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m glad to answer any questions you might have.

Chairman Collins

I’ve got a couple of questions for you, there- [inaudible 00:07:21]

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Yes sir.

Chairman Collins

So, we know there’s 15, 1,500 illegal aliens in this state that are on ICE detainers.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Yes sir.

Chairman Collins:

But we do not know how many illegal aliens that we have in our prison system, total. We do not know that.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Hm. Chairman, we do not.

Chairman Collins

We do not know that. Now, we don’t know that. Somebody-

Rep Jesse Petrea:

That doesn’t mean we don’t know that.

Chairman Collins

Somebody probably knows that.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

I don’t know that.

Chairman Collins

But they’re not sharing that information with us.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

My understanding, and the department is welcome to speak, my understanding from talking to probably the most knowledgeable guy I’ve ever spoken to on this issue, Mr. John Feere, who is a chief of staff to Tom Homan the director of ICE, and two other directors, is that this information is all available, when our, our correctional system uses a, a, a … has a memorandum of agreement with a, a program called 287(g). So when you … You, you know, and you know, I’m not in the system, so I’ll, I explain it the best way I can. When you admit someone you … that … You are communicating with ICE to determine their status. Okay? Whether they’re here illegally or not.

My understanding from ICE is that they, they are going to know who is here illegally or not. Now, I can’t tell you what the department’s gonna say, ’cause we’ve been kinda round and round on that. But here’s the deal. They tell me, “You’re gonna know.” Now, that doesn’t mean they’re not all gonna have an ICE detainer, because again, you’re only gonna have a detainer if the Feds choose to pursue that individual, and for a myriad of reasons, as I discovered from talking to Mr. Feere] and others, they don’t always do that. And they particularly haven’t done that in the last couple of years. Because what the Biden demonstration has done, has decided that, “Well, we’re only interested in priority cases.” So you’re not gonna capture the totality of the problem. So, Mr. Chairman, now, this is a long answer to your question, but I don’t know the total number. But I will promise you this. It is more than the list of ICE detainers.

Chairman Collins

Okay.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

I cannot tell you the degree to which it is more than that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Collins

Any questions for the author, for the bill, before we hear from anybody from DOC? Any questions? All right.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Representative Evans?

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Rep Becky Evans:

Thank you. Um, so just to be clear, for the, for the purpose of the bill, this … How does, how does this improve our public safety if we have this bill?

Rep Jesse Petrea:

That’s a good question. I tried to answer it in the subcommittee as well, and I’ll do it again, uh, Representative, so here’s the deal. Uh, I believe that, uh, the people should know. You know, we’re dealing with a multitude of issues today. We’re talking about, um, some challenges we have with district attorneys, a multitude of things that relate to our public safety. Um, but in order to, to understand the problem in the realm of public safety, we s- we, we need to know where the problem is. Now, we all know that the, that, that overwhelmingly, because of the overwhelming difference in population, that our home- Listen. We got enough home-grown criminals to keep us busy, don’t we? We cer- We certainly do.

But the degree to which, if, if someone is interested in whether or not this country is, uh, and their … and the lack of following our immigration laws is impacting our lives, um, I believe the people have a right to know that. So I believe that offering information is beneficial to society. That’s, that’s me, personally. Now, there are folks … So the mantra, generally, is this. Uh, beca- And I will tell you, the first thing I wanna say is the overwhelming majority of, uh, not only immigrants, but even illegal immigrants in this country, uh, are, are, are, are, are good people. They’re good people.

That doesn’t change what I said earlier. The majority of cri- the majority of society are good people. But every criminal alien in this country who then commits a crime on our people was an avoidable crime. Okay? And so I believe educating people on the degree to which is this is a problem, helps them to make a more informed decision about whether they care about the issue of illegal r- immigration or not. That’s the best I can answer that. Okay?

Rep Becky Evans:

Chairman? May I- [inaudible 00:11:56]

Rep Jesse Petrea:

It’s a matter if do they need-

Speaker 2:

Go ahead.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

… to see it or not.

Rep Becky Evans:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Go ahead.

Rep Becky Evans:

Yeah. So, I know you … You know, it’s a good point, you wanna talk about what the problem is. But I, I … One of my, uh, fears about this, this type of bill is that, um, we have, you know, a … We have had a rise in, in, you know, hate, uh, you know, hate crimes, you know, across our country. And we had this incident, you know, in El Paso, um, where a gentleman came in and shot a bunch of, you know, Hispanic people, because of this, you know, huge criminal, illegal, uh, invasion coming across our border. And, um, I’m concerned about the impact of, uh, of, of this contributing to anti immigrant, um, sentiment.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Uh, Representative, I appreciate your comment, but I, I have a hard time fathoming that. I mean, what, what we’re doing is simply saying that the data that is specifically already in … Uh, we’re aggregating the data to show the breadth of a problem that has nothing … I m- I mentioned to the subcommittee the other day, and this is, this isn’t any … You know, there’s this tendency. Actually, it’s an, it’s an, uh, it, it’s routine and it’s done on purpose, to kinda pigeonhole this as relating to one group. There’s 100 … There’s 1,505, here. 150 of ’em, I was looking around the webs- 150 of ’em are Germans.

So we have a problem in this country, uh, by the way, the immigration problem, uh, a huge proportion of it is overstayed visas. These aren’t people com- crossing a border. This … There, there’s an issue. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. The issue is are people criminally here? And then, they commit crimes on our country. And quite frankly, here’s what’s happening. Many of those individuals who are criminally he- or illegally here in the first place, then commit a crime, often violent or sexual, like these, are never even deported after they serve their time. They’re not even deported.

Speaker 2:

Repeat that-

Rep Jesse Petrea:

And the answers-

Speaker 2:

… one … Repeat that more time.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Not everyone is deported after serving, uh, their cri- their time in this country for a crime against our constituents. They aren’t all deported. By virtue of the fact that I just told you, they don’t all of ICE detainers.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

They are not deported. But, uh, but every, every common sensical person I represent would say, “Listen. You’re breaking the law getting here and then you assault our people? You attack our people? You commit crimes against our people?” Surely we could all agree that those individuals should be removed. That’s not the case. So-

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Listen. Uh, uh, I, I … You know, I don’t wanna get in too big of a debate on that, but that’s the reason I believe the people have a right. Now, the question is do people have a right to know the degree of this problem or not?

Speaker 2:

Well- [inaudible 00:14:34]

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Well, listen, the mantra is often, uh, that these people who are mostly good people, that are maybe here illegally, I will tell you, overwhelmingly, good, hard-working people who don’t like, who don’t … who, who oftentimes are the victims of these crimes.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Let me be clear. And I’ve talked to a multitude of people, le- legal immigrants here, who are 100% behind me.

Speaker 2:

Number 16.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Now let me … Mr. Chairman, could I say one more thing?

Speaker 2:

Please.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

The mantra from the other side, which has an agenda, is that the only crimes these folks commit are speeding tickets and parking tickets, that’s it. They’re just parking tickets, speed ti- You’re gonna deport people for parking tickets, speeding tickets. There ain’t nobody deporting somebody over parking tickets, speeding tickets. My friends, there’s no speeding tickets on here. There’s no, there’s, there’s, that’s, that’s … It’s simply not true. Okay? [inaudible 00:15:23]-

Speaker 2:

Representative Frazier, you had a question?

Speaker 4:

[inaudible 00:15:25] a conversation.

Speaker 2:

Oh.

Speaker 4:

Please- [inaudible 00:15:28]

Speaker 2:

Who’s number 16 down there? Mi- Representative Cummings, I’m sorry. I was [inaudible 00:15:35] Representative Frazier was there.

Rep Terry Cummings:

Good morning.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Good morning.

Rep Terry Cummings:

Um, it’s my understanding that a lotta times, um, undocumented immigrants do not report crimes, for fear of being taken in and deported. How do you feel that this bill will further kind of, um, increase that?

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Well, I’d, I, I … So this relates only to those already in the criminal justice system, in our prisons, so I don’t understand how it could impact that at all.

Rep Terry Cummings:

Because you’re still gonna have-

Rep Jesse Petrea:

You-

Rep Terry Cummings:

… more arrests.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Say again?

Rep Terry Cummings:

You’re still … You’re talking about people currently.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Rep Terry Cummings:

But there are people coming into the system every day. So the numbers change. That’s why you had the 15 or five change was only ’cause more are coming to the system.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Look, but Representative, my point is that what happens in the, in the community with your, uh, with your law enforcement in the community, has nothing to do with this. This bill is only … So, so to be clear, this bill doesn’t affect anyth- anyone, uh, or anything unless they’re already admitted into the state prison system, not even on a local level. But once they’re there, there is a re- There is an agreement, where we discover, “Okay, inmate number 22 is now admitted.” We discover whether they’re here illegally or not.

And all this does is every 90 days, aggregate the data of the totality of those numbers, uh, for the transparency, for people to understand, that agreed to which it either is, or in their mind, isn’t a problem. So I d- I … Uh, uh, I’m I respect your question, but I, I don’t understand how it could fact- affect them, anyway. ‘Cause all it does is educate (laughs) people on those that are already in the correctional system.

Rep Terry Cummings:

I tend to s-

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Not that it does, doesn’t deal with the community in any way, shape, or form.

Rep Terry Cummings:

I tend to see things, sometimes, as unintended consequences, and that’s what my concern is with, with this. The other concern is, um, you said that you wanted countries identified, so if you find out that a specific number or a large number are coming from one particular country, what would the resolution be to that?

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Well, there is no res- Again, there’s no resolution. This is, this is providing data to the people. Now, you can go on … so, t- to be clear, you can … So on the website today, you can go to the Department of Corrections, and if you wanna spend a lot of time searching around, there’s a … You can click on foreign inmates. And you can see the self-reported home countries of all these inma- And you can see. You can see so much more than I’m interested in. (laughs) You can see their name, w- where they came from, what they did, when they did it. You can see everything about ’em. I, I’m not interested in all that. So, w-

Robert:

But the answer to your question is this, let’s say that, let’s say that you look and you see there’s, ah, you know, 105 [inaudible 00:00:12], 150 from Germany. Those are obviously over-stayed visas. And you see a multitude of others. It tells you… You might see, y- you might see a list of those that are on terrorist watch lists of nations. I don’t know. I don’t know. But there’s a… W- Why would we not want the totality of that information to be shared, as long as it’s aggregated? It’s not specific.

Chair:

Hold on, hold on one moment, please.

Rep Sainz:

But that’s my question. I’m sorry, Chairman. I’m-

Chair:

President [inaudible 00:00:37], you had a question?

Speaker 3:

A couple of quick ones. Um, would you not agree that it’s in, in mentioning unintended consequences, would you not agree, uh, um, that this, your bill addresses the unintended consequences of our, uh, lapsed, uh, enforcement of illegal immigration? This is an unintended consequence?

Robert:

Yes, sir, I would agree wholeheartedly.

Speaker 3:

And in relation to my colleagues mentioning of anti-immigrant behavior, would you not agree that you have faith in your constituencies, and the constituencies of, of the members here that the, that our citizens who are looking at this information can distinctify the difference between those who violate our laws, not once, but twice, by first coming into this country illegally, and then second, violating in a dangerous fashion and creating victims in our nation. And legal immigrants like, for example, my own mother, who I can attest is a wonderful lady and a legal immigrant, who.. Do you think that that separation is clear to the, to our constituencies

Robert:

I think it is representative, and indeed, I met your mother and a lovely lady she is.

Speaker 3:

Appreciate it.

Chair:

Number 10, we got down there.

Speaker 4:

[inaudible 00:01:42].

Chair:

Representative, go ahead.

Speaker 4:

Yes, sir. Yeah, I just want to thank you for bringing this bill. Ah, you know, the information that you’re communicating to the American public is very valuable information that, at the end of the day, you know, we, we should have as an informed… I mean, we should do everything we can to inform the public about all the various issues that, that face our country so that they can make intelligent decisions about how they want their, their leaders to, ah, to run their country. So I appreciate this and, and the information and, and what this bill does.

Chair:

We’ve got 10 members that are going to be speak… Two, two folks out there in the audience that want to speak and give some testimony.

Speaker 4:

Yes, sir.

Chair:

Ms. Stamps. I’m sorry?

Ms. STamper:

Stamper.

Chair:

Stamper, I’m sorry. Ms. Stamper, if you want to go to the podium.

Speaker 4:

Mr. Chairman, I’m going to take my seat back over here, thank you.

Ms. STamper:

How long do I have to speak?

Chair:

I think brevity’s going to be your friend here, because we have another bill.

Ms. STamper:

Okay, great. Hi, my name is Katy Stamper and I’m a lawyer. I live in Woodstock. I only work part-time, so don’t call me for any business, okay? Um, I’ve come here to speak about this bill because I’m very troubled that I even have to come down here and talk about it. We don’t want our country to turn into another country. So as the author of the bill said, this gives us information to know how bad the problem is. And we’re entitled to have that information.

And when you talk about the shooting in El Paso, we have a right to be angry at illegal aliens. We have a right to be angry at our federal government for not enforcing our border. We have a right to be upset that illegal aliens go into our hospitals and get free dialysis twice a week. We have a right to be, to object to that.

I don’t like the idea that this would eve be a question. There should be a presumption that we are given this knowledge. It should be a rubber stamp. Because if I don’t do something that y’all want me to do, I get in trouble and I get harassed about it. Why would illegal aliens be treated any differently? Why would we want.. Why would we not want to know? Why is our Governor Kemp, who campaigned on getting his truck, why is nobody doing anything about deporting these people?

So I would like to know why you don’t contact our Senators and say to them, “Why aren’t you pressuring President Bilen, Biden and Mayorkas to enforce the border, instead of worrying about prejudice against illegal aliens?”

Chair:

Ma’am, if you wold, if you have another comment about the bill, that’s fine. You can speak about the bill, but we’re not going to direct specific comments.

Ms. STamper:

Well, I’m sorry-

Chair:

And I think we all, we all have a reason to be mad when someone goes in and kills innocent people. I, I don’t appreciate your comments there.

Ms. STamper:

What do you mean?

Chair:

When you were specifying that direct from there.

Ms. STamper:

I’m-

Chair:

When you were directing your comments about we should be angry. We should not necessarily be angry. We should be concerned, but I, I don’t think we want to make light of the situation where innocent people were killed.

Ms. STamper:

I’m not making light of anything.

Chair:

Well, I, I take your-

Ms. STamper:

I’m not making light of anything. What this committee-

Chair:

I think your time-

Ms. STamper:

… is doing.

Chair:

I think your time speaking is over with and you have, you have made it very clear that you support this bill, and I appreciate your comments. If you’ll please take your seat.

Ms. STamper:

Sure.

Chair:

We’ll move on. Thank you.

Speaker 6:

[inaudible 00:05:10], Mr. Chairman.

Chair:

The next person we have is, ah, Mr. D.A. Keen.

D.A. King:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the committee, my name is D.A. King. I use my initials because my mom named me Donald Arthur King and I’m afraid somebody would confuse me with the other Don King, so. If I live until April, I’ll be 71 years old. I started coming to this campus in tw-… in 2004 to educate legislators on illegal immigration. And we passed a lot of laws I helped draft, I helped pass, I’ve held rallies. I’ve urged, pleaded, debated and pushed. We have a lot of laws on the books here in Georgia aimed at illegal immigration.

I came today to thank State Representative Jesse Petrea, who is a very dear friend of mine, for introducing this bill. I’m here to support the bill. I run a nonprofit called the Dustin Inman Society. The Dustin Inman Society is named after a Woodstock youth who is forever 16 years old because we do not enforce our immigration laws.

At the minium, I hope this bill passes as it is so that we can at least have a look into the price, the cost, not just the human cost, but the monetary cost of the criminal aliens that are in the state prison system. I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine the upside to not passing this bill as is. Further, I can’t imagine anybody who would try to downgrade it to include only detainers.

As State Representative Jesse Petrea has said, that is a very small portion of the total illegal aliens in the prison system. Uh, Representative Petrea quoted a very dear friend of mine who I’d known for a long time on, on, wh- who worked for ICE. He is exactly right and I’m going to get done in a minute, but I want to say this to all the legislators here. Representative Petrea has learned a lot because he did his research on illegal immigration in a state where, folks, we have more illegal aliens in Georgia than they have in Arizona.

We have more illegal aliens in Georgia than we have Green Card holders. I admire and thank Representative Petrea from here and sincerely, while I look everybody in the eye on this panel, if you will spend the amount of time and show the interest in illegal immigration that Representative Petrea has, I will come to your house and I will wash your car.

It’s very, very important that this bill passes. I hope you’ll pass it out today. I can stand here and speak forever, but it’s a good bill. It’s worthy of your vote and if we don’t pass it, people are going to be asking a lot of questions about why not. I am more than happy to take any questions.

Chair:

Okay. Ah, thank you.

D.A. King:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Chair:

Any questions? I don’t think there’s any questions at this time. We have someone from the Department of Corrections that would, uh, be, be having testimony [inaudible 00:08:36] after this, before we, we [inaudible 00:08:37] the question on this?

Rob Thrower:

Yeah, I’ll be brief, Mr. Chairman. Um, first I just want to thank Chairman Petrea, ah, for his willingness to work together and for being transparent and honest with us of the direction of the bill. Ah, secondly, anything I say here today, I don’t want it to have any intention of us undermining, uh, our partnership with ICE and the 287 G Agreement.

The folks who work with ICE do a great job and we’re going to continue to work with ICE on the 287 G Agreement. Um, at this juncture between the department and the current version of the bill, there just is a disagreement about the language as it stands. Um, there’s a substitute out there that, ah, would accomplish what the department sees as what it can get its hands on, right now and publish.

And, you know, my intent today is not to be adversarial in any, way, shape or form. I’m just a mutual fact finder on some of the questions that you may have. So if there’s no questions, I’ll take my seat.

Chair:

Good, that’s fine. Number 19, you have a question? Do you have-

Rep Bill Werkheiser:

In relation to what you mentioned, what in, what in the bill would you need changing in order to be in support? You said there was a substitute version, ob- obviously not in front of us. So what it, what areas, ah, is the issue it was, I guess.

Chair:

The substitute is not in front of us. The bill that is presented was the bill that was presented in, in a subcommittee, as alluded by the author earlier in his comments. So if you want to answer that question about what it was the department preferred to be in the sub?

Robert:

Yes, sir. I apologize-

Chair:

We’re all friends here, we’re going to be friends after this is over with. Most of us, all of us sitting up here will be. But you feel free to answer that question.

Rob Thrower DOC liaison:

No, and, and I’ll clear that up. There was no substitute introduced. There’s a substitute that we were working on, so I’ll, I’ll clear that up. Apologies there. Ah, the piece about immigration status, um, felt that the might tie the department’s hands in what exactly we’re looking for with immigration status. Ah, the piece that we could… and there was a earlier version of this bill back in 2019, House Bill 202, that we had kind of narrowed down to publishing the information that we currently give, which is the number of ICE detainers broken down by crime.

Ah, the list that I think you have in front of you that we share with, ah, Chairman Petrea from time to time, ah, that is the quantifiable information that we can grab, or we can put our hands on immediately. And we can put it on our website without a bill or with the bill, but that’s what we can concretely put our hands on.

So, the immigration status was a bit confusing about what the intention was, and what we have, and what, how we could make that work.

Chair:

Thank you. One question I do have for you Rob, if you don’t mind, what’s it cost to house someone in our prison system?

Rob Thrower:

$73 a day.

Chair:

$73 a day. Okay. Wow. Do we have any more questions for the department? Number 29 over here. [inaudible 00:11:55].

Rep Bill Werkhieser:

Thank you, Chairman. Is there no reason that we could not, um, consider substitute, since the department that we’re asking to do this is saying they cannot even do the current version of the bill?

Speaker 12:

Mr Chairman, you have the ability to, to-

Speaker 13:

I would like to make a motion that we accept, ah, substitute-

Chair:

We’re, we’re not ready to do, to do that yet. But at the appropriate time, the Chair will be more than, ah, pleased to, ah, intro-… to recognize you. Number 26, that’s Chairman Petrea.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Mr. Chairman, to be clear, ah, Chairman Werkeizer just misspoke. He just said that the department cannot do this. That is inaccurate. Ah, Mr. Thrower did not say they cannot do it. You’ve heard him allude to the fact that, I think you said, I’m not going to put words in your mouth, and by the way, this young man has been enormously helpful to me. The department has been extremely helpful in every way.

What he said was, “It’s easy to get today.” Remember, we’ve got a little bit of a disconnect here between what I’m hearing from ICE, but this information… So I want you to contemplate something. Contemplate that someone has been arrested in the community, been found to be guilty. They’ve gone through all their… They’re not in our state prison system. They’re not in a county jail. They’re in our state prison system. And then I want you to imagine that we honestly don’t even know whether they’re here illegally or not.

Isn’t that hard to understand? It would seem that we would know that. And of course, we have 287 G. So I don’t think that now, so I’m going to ask Rob, to answer the question. Is it that you cannot do it, or that it is easier to do it with only ICE detainers which would be a subset of those that are in the system?

Rob Thrower DOC:

The ICE detainer information is, like I said, what we can put our hands on. The immigration status piece starts, you know, in my opinion getting into, um, did somebody walk over the border illegally? Did somebody have an education visa that’s expired? Did somebody have a work visa that’s expired, or [inaudible 00:14:06] has ICE identified somebody that’s, um, in violation of some form of immigration law that’s given them probably cause to put a detainer on.

And so, I.. We don’t have that information. When they send the detainer to us, they just say, “We have probably cause that this individual, ah, rises to the level of putting a detainer on them, and, you know, we’ve got the process of putting it in their file and contacting them after the sentence has expired.”

 So that’s where I was going with the, ah, information that we have and what we can provide.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Is that, is that clear to everybody? I’m still trying to process that, but let me come back to you in just a sec. Number 20 down there, is that-

Speaker 16:

Yeah, and mine’s following on the exact same thing we’re all talking about now, is, ah, is your inability to provide the information, or a, again it, it-… This bill would require that, so if, if it was a requirement, could that information then be obtained because there was a reason to, and there’s no reason to get it now? Is that, is that what it amounts to?

Rob Thrower:

Well again, I don’t want to speak for what we can and can’t do under our 287 G Agreement. Um, you know, the information that is requested upon us when we get the email that says, “Can you provide the information of the number of detainers broken down by crime?” I can get you the number of detainers that we have on file in the system currently today. Um, the other stuff, I, I can break it own by crime, I can give you total numbers, but the other stuff is stuff that I just can’t put my hands on concretely to turn back over-

Rep Jesse Petrea:

So would the federal government, you think they would not give that to you if you asked for it?

Robert:

It would probably have to be, and, and I’m just, I, I don’t sit on our 287 G steering committee. But what it’d probably have to be is some kind of an agreement to our current 287 G MOA.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

But that could be done, right?

Robert:

[inaudible 00:16:13].

Rep Jesse Petrea:

We could make that agreement?

Robert:

Yeah, I’m not saying it couldn’t be done.

Rep Jesse Petrea:

Okay.

Chair:

Good, all right. Ah, we’re going to-

Speaker 17:

Mr. Chairman-

Chair:

No, sir,

Speaker 17:

[inaudible 00:16:21].

Chair:

No, sir, no sir. You got to sit down. You got a order. You got a order. All right, let’s see. I think there’s number 29 down there. Yes, sir. [inaudible 00:16:29], please.

Speaker 19:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just trying to clarify your statement. So you’re saying the State of Georgia Department of Corrections does not ne-… know for sure who’s an illegal immigrant in our prison system today?

Robert:

What I’m saying is that we know who ICE has identified somebody with probably cause to put a detainer on. I don’t know the status or what the reasoning behind the probably cause that they have to put a detainer on him. But I just know they have a detainer. I don’t know the reasons why, for why a detainer’s been placed on an individual.

Chair:

Okay, all right. Let’s see here. All right, no further, no further questions at this time. We have talked about this bill in subcommittee, and we talked about this bill here today. And I know that members of the committee share, share the concerns, ah, that I do and some don’t. Ah, and now that it’s time, ah, we move forward, what would be the desire and the will of this committee, ah, in reference to House Bill 136? Motion made, duly passed? Second? All those in favor, please say aye?

Room:

Aye.

Chair:

All those opposed?

Room:

No.

Chair:

Okay, we’re going to move for division. All those, ah, aye, please raise your right hand for yes. 11, [inaudible 00:17:53] 11.

All those opposed, same sign. One, two, three, four, [inaudible 00:18:01]. The bill passes with a vote of 11 to support it and four against. Thank you all for attending today. We have one more bill. For those of you who would like to, ah, be dismissed, you can be…

The below video and transcript is from a hearing in the Senate Committee on Interstate Cooperation at the Georgia Capitol on Friday, February 10, 2023. The hearing was three hours long. This segment is the testimony of former Acting ICE Director, Tom Homan who was the final witness of the day.

Senate Media Release here.

Liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution coverage here.

Access to video here See “2-10-23” and go to 239:26 on the slide/counter

Transcript by Rev.com. My cost: $68.00 and about three hours.

_____

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Yeah. Um, the, uh- the next person we’re gonna have, this’ll be the last person in this line of testimony, is Mister Tom Homan, uh, the former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director.

Mr. Homan, we give you, uh, our sincere Georgia apologies for the delay today in our schedule.

Director Tom Homan:

So, I appreciate the invite. Um, after I make my remarks, I just wanna go over a few data points specific to Georgia that we have researched. I want to show them with you, uh, and take an extra f- couple minutes.

So, let’s- uh, uh, let’s look at borders as- as what is going on. First of all, where I come from, I was a cop in New York, joined the Border Patrol in 1984. I’ve been enforcing immigration law for 35 years. I was the first director that came up through the ranks. I was nominated by President Trump. I’ve worked for six presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan. Every president I worked for cared about s- border security. They all, they all campaigned on it. They all took steps to secure the border ’cause they recognized you can’t have national security without border security. Even President Obama, President Clinton, took steps to secure the border.

Matter of fact, under President Obama in FY12, I was the third in command of ICE. We removed a record number of illegal aliens, 409,000. No one did more than President Trump to secure the border. Illegal immigration was down 83%, a 45-year low. The data’s clear. It’s not my opinion. Anybody go to CBP website and look at the data. 83% decline, 45-year low.

President Biden’s the first president in the history of this nation who came into office and unsecured the border. That’s just a fact. I mean, when you- when- when you- when you promise you’re gonna put a moratorium on deportations, when you promise they won’t be detained, when you promise they can get work authorization, when you promise you can get free healthcare, when you promise that I’m gonna give you amnesty, when you make those type of promises, the most vulnerable people in the world are gonna make this trip to come to the greatest country on earth, and many of them will put themselves in the arms of criminal cartels who will abuse them.

So regardless of what anybody’s … I’m an immigration enforcement guy, but regardless of anybody’s opinion on immigration enforcement, good, bad, indifferent, what this administration has done has caused such a crisis, such large numbers. We went from 83 … 45-year low to historic numbers crossing the border we’ve never seen in the history of this nation. When you do that to the Border Patrol, it overwhelms them to the point that many sectors, up to 70 to 80%, that’s right, 70 to 80% of agents are pulled from the line, patrol, to process these big groups.

They’re criminal cartels, as you heard previously from Jason. They’ll push a group of 200 families to one area, knowing that whatever’s left on the border, which is very few of them, will seize to that area to deal with that humanitarian crisis, ’cause a lot of people are in bad shape and they need immediate medical care. The cartels create gaps.

So when you overwhelm the Border Patrol, 80% [inaudible 00:03:11], remember there’s 15,000 Haitians under the bridge, they pulled every agent from that sector in to deal with that. There was 204 miles of border unguarded for days. Cartels know exactly what they’re doing.

So when you create such a huge crisis like that, humanitarian crisis, what that causes is the border be vulnerable to drug crossing the border, criminals crossing the border, and also threat to terrorist, it’s a huge vulnerability, and let me- let … I don’t wanna understate that. Border patrol’s arrested 151 people from- that are o- who’re on the terrorist watch list, known, suspected terrorists. 151 since Joe Biden’s been in office. Border Patrol’s arrested people from 171 different countries. Many of these countries are sponsors of terrorism. There’s 1.2 million recorded got-aways, 1.2 million. If you don’t think a single one of that 1.2 million came from a country that sponsors terrorism, you’re ignoring the data. It’s just- it’s- it’s a real percentage.

So what this administration does has created not only humanitarian crisis, they created a public safety crisis. Border Patrol’s arrested over 70,000 convicted criminals. That’s who they arrested. Over 100 of them convicted of homicide. 71,000 criminals. 151 known suspected terrorists. And here’s [inaudible 00:04:29] 1.2 million got-aways. You heard it before. Why wouldn’t they turn themselves into Border Patrol, be processed, get a free airline ticket to the city of their choice, apply for work authorization, spend a couple years fighting their case, why would you not take advantage of that give-away program? Why did you choose to pay the cartels extra money to get away?

This is simple. They don’t wanna be vetted. They don’t wanna be fingerprinted. I’m not saying every one of them a criminal, but there’s a reason they tried to escape and ma- and 1.2 million did. That should scare the hell outta everybody. It does me.

So this is what we’re presented with today, and- and, uh, in, uh … how’s it affect Georgia? Look, there’s certain things Georgia can do. When I was down at the border, I can tell you right now that fentanyl’s going to every town, city, and state in this country. It’s coming to Georgia. Criminal aliens, some of them are coming to Georgia. Non-criminal aliens, they’re coming to Georgia. Why- why I think a lot of criminal aliens are coming to Georgia, one of the reasons why, your sanctuary city policies. Sanctuary city policies are a driver. Criminals know they can come, commit a crime, they’ll get arrested and they’ll do jail time, but they won’t be deported, ’cause sanctuary cities refuse to work with ICE.

But I hear the argument all the time, “Sanctuary cities is necessary ’cause you want victims and witnesses of a crime to come forward and not be afraid to talk to the sheriff.” It’s garbage. ICE isn’t looking for victims and witnesses. ICE wants to talk to the bad guys sitting in the jail cell that the local department decided to lock into a jail cell. That’s who they wanna talk to. They don’t wanna talk to victim, witness. Matter of fact, if they knew there’s a victim, he can actually get a visa as a victim of crime. So they want access to the bad guy. That’s all they want.

So this- the misnomer that drives immigrants away from working with law enforcement, that’s because of the mismessaging from the- from the open border advocates. We just need [inaudible 00:06:26] what- what is ICE doing in our jail? To take the bad guy off the street. You go to any neighborhood watch, immigrant community, and ask ’em, “Do you want pedophiles in your neighborhood? Do you want someone convicted of DUI 10 times in your neighborhood?”

Most people that come to this country legally, once they get here, are law-abiding. There’s family people, God-fearing people. They don’t want criminals [inaudible 00:06:50] either. They wanna protect their families. If you ask ’em, “Would you rather have ICE in the jail or in your neighborhood?” They’re gonna say the jail. So let me tell what sanctuary city policies do: Undermi- … When I was the director, 91% of everybody we arrested was a convicted criminal or pending criminal charges, which means we found ’em in a county jail. 91%. Nine out of 10.

Now, who is that other 9%? The other 9% were collaterals. You know where most collateral arrests are made? Sanctuary cities. Sanctuary jurisdictions. Why is that? Because when ICE can’t arrest a bad guy in the jail, they’re gonna do the job, which means now [inaudible 00:07:26] will find ’em. And here’s the downside of that. When he finds him, they’re probably gonna find others. And they’re not gonna walk away from the others. They’re here illegally, they’re gonna get- they’re gonna get locked up. So that’s where most of your other arrests come from.

I’ll argue this. When- in- when ICE can’t arrest a bad guy in the jail, now they gotta go to the neighborhood and find him on his turf where he has access to what- who knows what weapons. When you release- when you knowingly release a criminal alien back to the street, back to the neighborhood, they’re likely to re-offend in the very community which they live, the immigrant community.

So- so the- the sanctuary policy, number one, puts the immigrant community at greater risk of crime. Do you think that victim witness wants a bad guy back in their neighborhood? No. [inaudible 00:08:07] greater risk of crime, [inaudible 00:08:09] of a greater risk to ICE risk, and now ICE is back in their neighborhoods. It puts the officers at greater risk. Sanctuary city policies don’t make sense. These people are in the country illegally. There’s nothing in the Immigration and Nationality Act, the laws I enforce, that say you must commit a crime to be deported. No. You’re in the country illegally. And that’s the message we oughta stop sending, ’cause if all you keep sending that message, it’s okay, it’s just illegal immigration, the more people are coming over, so the border crisis.

The reason I didn’t go 120 mile-an-hour down the highway to get here, I’m afraid I’m gonna get a speeding ticket. The reason I don’t lie on my taxes, I don’t wanna get- I don’t wanna get- I don’t wanna get charged with tax evasion. When you enter the country illegally, you should know you did something wrong. You shouldn’t feel safe and secure. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. But understand, we can’t go arrest 20 million. I get that. That’s why we prioritize. 91% under my administration.

Now look at the current administration, it’s like 40%, because they’re dealing so much with this crisis on the border. That’s why we need access to the jails. If people want ICE to prioritize, they wanna prioritize more the criminals and public safety threats, then don’t lock us out of the jail.

Georgia has a lot of sanctuary cities in the state. Frankly, I’m disappointed in your governor [inaudible 00:09:27]. I saw when he first ran, he’s gonna take his pickup truck and pick ’em up. I haven’t seen him do much since then.

Let me- let me tell you what’s happening in Georgia. Not only because of sanctuary city policies, but even the Biden administration now has refused, ICE can’t release the majority of the criminals. Out of the criminals that were arrested when I was the director, about 80% of them are off the table now. They’re not called a priority. Domestic violence, not- domestic violence risk, not a priority. DUIs, not a priority. Burglary, not a priority.

So between the Biden administration cutting off ICE at the knees that took most of the crimes off the table, and sanctuary cities, let me tell you where Georgia’s at. 10 states experienced an extreme decline in enforcement of greater than 80%. Georgia ranks number three. The high volume counties with the steepest decline in removals, loc- of locally arrested criminals that were turned over to ICE, Gwinnett- Gwinnett County, Georgia, ranks right at the top.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

What- what county’s that?

Director Tom Homan:

Gwinnett.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Okay.

Director Tom Homan:

Let me go to the states, let me go to the counties. First of all, Georgia, number of ICE removals for locally arrested criminal aliens, Georgia’s down 82%. Huge. Gordon County, Georgia, down 95%. Bartow, Georgia, down 94%. Barrow, Georgia, down 94%. Chatham, Georgia, down 91%. Gwinnett, Georgia, 90% down. Cobb, Georgia, 83% down. Coweta, Georgia, C-O-W-E-T-A, Georgia, down 90%. Henry, Georgia, down 90%. I’m not putting this all on the sheriffs, ’cause a lot has to do with this administration taking certain criminals off the table that ICE can no longer put detainer on. But that’s the position Georgia’s in.

[inaudible 00:11:20] just came out by the Center of Immigration Studies, just a long, great, uh, data analysis. This is great. This is- this is accurate information. So if you’re asking me what Georgia can do to help with the border crisis, outlaw sanctuary cities. Sanc- sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for the criminal aliens. They’re not a sanctuary for [inaudible 00:11:38], they’re not a sanctuary for the citizens, they’re not sanctuaries for law-abiding, I use that term, you know, law-abiding, people are in a country legally, that- that obey the law after they’re here and try to raise their families, it’s not a- it’s not a sanctuary for them. It’s the sanctuaries for the criminals who ICE can’t get in jail to arrest.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Mister Homan.

Director Tom Homan:

With that, I’ll leave the questions.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Um, you said under the current administration, ICE, um, doesn’t worry about certain crimes, right?

Director Tom Homan:

ICE does, but the administration don’t allow them to, uh, uh, either put a detainer on them or arrest them.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Right. So wh- when I talk to law enforcement across the state and- and they pull over traffickers or smugglers, they say when they call ICE, they don’t answer the phone. They said back when Trump was president, they would call ICE and ICE took care of business, but today that doesn’t take place. I- is that across the board for all crimes? Or has this administration pick and chose which crimes those are?

Director Tom Homan:

They pick and choose what- what- what is called priority, uh, that ICE can spend time working on. As far as [inaudible 00:12:44], I heard- I heard the same thing across the country. But it’s sad because a lot of these [inaudible 00:12:49] trafficking cases that ICE should respond to. If trafficking’s really an issue, really a priority for this administration, they should demand ICE respond to those calls. But they don’t.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

So of- of all of ICE’s resources, how many of those are at the southern border versus other ports and other places in the country?

Director Tom Homan:

It depends on the- the flow at the border. They- they’ve had- they’ve had thousands down there. They’ve had hundreds down there. Depends on the flow. But- but here’s- here’s- here’s the truth about what the Biden administration has done. They mismessaged the American people. We need to further prioritize a smaller population of the most significant criminals because of a lack of resources. There is no lack of resources. In FY12 when President Obama, ICE arrested and removed 409,000 people. Now, with more agents than we’ve ever had, more immigration judges than we’ve ever had, they removed 59,000 last year. A fraction of the 409,000. So show me where the lack of resources is. This is about this administration opening the border up and at the same time, shutting down interior enforcement. That’s why- that’s why you don’t see- that’s why you see so many being- people being released.

ICE has thousands of beds empty right now, already paid for by the taxpayer, paid for by the taxpayer, sitting empty at about 100 bucks a night. But they rather [inaudible 00:14:12] in jail 300 bucks a night to put in a hotel. Why is that?

Well, I’ll tell you why that is. Immigration court data says nine out of 10 of people that claim asylum at the southern border never get relief from US courts. [inaudible 00:14:25] they don’t qualify. Nine out of 10. So that nine out of 10 will get an order of removal from a federal judge. The Homeland Security [inaudible 00:14:33] report, the secretary’s very own report, says this, “If you get an order of remove and you’re in ICE detention, you get removed 99% of the time. If you’re not in ICE detention and you [inaudible 00:14:43], you leave 6% of the time. If you’re [inaudible 00:14:46], 83% of the time. There’s a reason [inaudible 00:14:49], because they don’t want ’em removed.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Senator Robertson…

Sen. Robertson:

Director, thank you for being here. I appreciate that. Um, I recognize that accent. And, uh, so the best pronunciation of a lot of those counties, you’re forgiven.

Director Tom Homan

(laughs)-

Director Tom Homan:

Thank you, Sen- thank you.

Sen. Robertson:

Uh, dude, I got some- I got some good buddies with NYPD and- and- and, uh, um, off the mic, we have some very, uh, unique and spicy conversations back-and-forth to each other about each other’s, uh, perceived accents.

Um, now, talking about the sanctuary cities, I know the Florida governor, um, passed some legislation and- and full disclosure, the department I worked at, we got a little, small jail that holds about a thousand individuals and we had a really good relationship with our friends over at, uh- at ICE and- and they would come in and do the interviews and then we have a detention center not far in Lumpkin, Georgia, where individuals will be transported over and- and the planes would fly out of our Columbus Metropolitan Airport, carrying individuals back to the state of Texas so that they could be reunited with their, uh- where- with their families back home, those that were over here, um, illegally, or those that were being deported because of criminal activity and- and- and other things.

So, um, the- what has been the response of those … I know, I think, Florida passed the legislation not too long ago where Governor DeSantis signed legislation outlawing sanctuary cities in Florida. Do you know overall what the response has been to those communities that promote sanctuary?

Director Tom Homan:

They pretty much outlawed all of these … there’s still a couple sanctuary cities left, sanctuary jurisdictions, and th- and the state’s working on it. Uh, I asked that question, I was over there two months ago. They said that they gotten rid of most of them. There’s a few more left that they’re- they’re- they’re not forgetting about, they’re gonna go after. Texas also passed a law outlawing sanctuary cities and it’s working very well. And look, the- the- your average-

Director Tom Homan:

The average deputy, the average cop, they want ICE in the neighborhood because not only do they improve that public safety trust in the neighborhoods, they can remove [inaudible 00:00:11]. And, uh, and I’m disappointed in some sheriffs here in Georgia who, who said, “Well, I’m gonna have a sanctuary city. And I’m gonna kick 287G out of my jails, because I find it racially discriminating.”

I don’t understand that. The 287G program is colorblind. Everybody that gets booked in that jail gets through the system. If I get arrested tonight, in a 287G county, when they run my fingerprints through NCIC, it also bounces against DHS database and [inaudible 00:00:38] my record, ICE knows about it.

So, I’ve said it before, I think some sheriffs should give their role as a law enforcement officer and, and, and trying to protect those [inaudible 00:00:50], which you’re supposed to do, and, and, and fold to the political pressure from the left. And I, I hate to see that.

Senator Robertson:

Well, in, in, in, in response to that, I will point out that the state of Georgia, as conservative as we are, we do have some pockets of, uh, cities that are very liberal. And I know you experienced it in your home state too, where if I go up to, uh, upstate New York, I meet a lot of that have the same political leanings as I do. But when I get closer down to the, to the apple, things start getting a little different.

So we do have those. And-

Director Tom Homan:

We don’t claim anything south pawed.

Senator Robertson:

(laughs) And to be clear, um, this is not… Someone reaches out to, to your department, this is not some jackboot response where individuals come in, demand to be allowed into the jail, and go in there. Again, jurisdictional, uh, boundaries are always adhered to and no matter what is written in the media, uh, 99% of the time one cop, no matter what agency he’s with, works very well with another cop, no matter, no matter what agency he’s with.

And we understand the job of each other, and, and we tend to lean in and try to work together and get things done. And that’s always been the relationship we’ve had with federal agencies, even beyond ICE, with FBI, DEA, ATF, everybody.

And that, that, that understanding of cooperation has to be there so that we can solve our problems, our local problems, our state problems, and our federal problems, because a lot of times those local and… Or state and local problems, uh, many times come from outside of our state borders, like what we heard from other witnesses testimony, where a lot of these individuals are carried into Houston, Harris County, Texas, and then find their way over here to Fulton County, Georgia.

So uh, I appreciate all the hard work you did. I was, uh… I, I shot a message down there to the chairman. We, we need to get the stats you have for those individuals in, in the counties. I’m not going be able to pronounce ’em the way you did, but, uh, we do need to address that. That’s a serious problem.

Director Tom Homan:

I’ll hand, I’ll hand these over to the chairman before I leave.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

I’d appreciate that Mr. Homan. And, and if you could think of two things that Georgia could do, um, to stop this crisis other than the sanctuary cities, what else would it be?

Director Tom Homan:

You’ve got to make it uncomfortable for criminal aliens and traffickers to come to Georgia. There’s a lot of things you can do. You can [inaudible 00:03:24]-

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

So 287G.

Director Tom Homan:

287-

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

I mean, to my understanding-

Director Tom Homan:

E- expand 287, 287G. [inaudible 00:03:30].

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

To my understanding there’s no teeth in that, Senator Robertson. Like if the, if a law enforcement agency doesn’t abide by 287G, there’s, there’s nothing that comes about that, right?

Senator Robertson:

Well, it can… That’s right. That’s-

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Right.

Senator Robertson:

Right. You’re exactly right. The, the director understands there’s, there’s gotta be cooperation back and forth. And that’s where they would come in. And, director, you correct anything that I say that’s wrong. But they come in and we have them on local charges.

A lot of times the, the feds allow the local charges. We place a hold called an ICE hold, uh, once the charge- And a lot, and a lot of times, um, depending on the circumstances of what the state charge may be, um, we’ll now proc the state charge to get ’em quicker in the system to get ’em outta the country.

If it’s a serious violation of, of law, we prosecute, but that ICE hold follows. And then that individual walks out of the gate of whatever prison he or she are in they step on a, a nondescript white bus and eventually end up at a deportation center, eventually on an airplane at the taxpayer’s, American taxpayer’s expense, and are given a flight out of the, out of the, to the state of Texas or Arizona then deported.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Mr. Holman, would you, would, would you consider this an invasion?

Director Tom Homan:

Absolutely. And if you want to make it kind of cut [inaudible 00:04:49] for, for illegal immigration to flourish in the state there’s a lot of things you can do. You require e-verified. For any business does, any business that does business with the state of, um, Ala- uh, uh, of Georgia, target business places of employers knowingly hiring illegal aliens. Pass [inaudible 00:05:04] clause for bringing day labor.

Require state and local law enforcement determine immigration status. Then… And then call 24/7 hotline, which ICE has. Prevent sanctuary cities. We just talked about that. Empower state residents to sue official who obstruct federal law enforcement policies. Require the majority of law enforcement agencies to participate in 287G.

Require small rural jurisdictions to enroll in a warrant services officer program. Enrolling law enforcement officers in a one-day training program rather than a four week 287G program allows warrant officers in the smallest jurisdictions to at least serve administrative warrants and execute arrest on behalf of ICE.

Enact laws making it a crime to transport, conceal, induce an illegal alien. Prohibit illegal aliens from receiving drivers licenses, license plates, business licenses. Collect data and publish crimes committed by illegal aliens. Let your tax payers know how much time your law enforcement has been tied up arresting and prosecuting illegal aliens.

Prohibit state and local taxes from funding attorneys for illegal aliens. It’s a, it’s an administrative charge. They have no right to a paid, uh, a paid attorney. Revise the definition of state residents to ensure state residents are clearly defined as legal citizens and lawful aliens.

Prohibit business licenses, contracts, and grants for NGOs. Prevent the big state cost for illegal aliens rightly requiring agencies and social services not to provide social service system for non, noncitizens, non-legal aliens. Require voter ID and clean voter tolls. Sue the federal government for failing to, sue ICE, for failing to do their job.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

So, so you would consider ICE, under the current administration, to be liable for a lot of our problems?

Director Tom Homan:

The administration is. The- they work under the direction of the president of the United States, but this administration made the decision. The Secretary of Homeland Security has decided who ICE can and can’t arrest.

I’ve talked to literally hundred of angel moms and dads who, who lost their children to illegal alien crime and, you know, this, this administration will meet with immigration activists, but they won’t meet with angel moms. And, you know, many of them have filed lawsuits against the administration.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

So you, so you, you think we have claim, uh, as a state of Georgia, uh, to sue the United States government for a failure, uh, of the administration, obviously, because we can say we have an invasion?

Director Tom Homan:

You can sue them for a lot of things, yeah. I, I’ve written affidavits for the state of Texas with Governor Paxton for a 5 and 0. Uh, I’ve written affidavits for the state of Arizona. I’ve written affidavits for the state of Florida, uh, as their expert witness. And, uh, a lot of state AGs are suing this administration and their winning.

So I think as long as this administration refuses, as long as they advocate the responsibility to secure this border, then I think states need to sue. Because what this administration has done is just to unleash, uh, an invasion. Over 100,000 Americans are dead from fentanyl.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Right.

Director Tom Homan:

The DEA says 95% of that fentanyl comes across the southwest border. Over 1,700 migrants have died on US soil since this administration took to office. That’s a record by far. Criminal cartels are making billions of dollars. The, the, the, the increase in sex traffic on women and children are at an all time high. Known suspected terrorists are arrested [inaudible 00:08:16] and that’s not counting 1.2 million [inaudible 00:08:19].

So this administration, in my opinion as a guy who did if for 35 years, has created this crisis, not by accident, not by mismanagement, on purpose. They opened that border up.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Senator Robertson…

Senator Robertson:

Yeah, and to be real quick, something I, I think the director did respond back on and I want to be clear. When we talk about qualified immunity a lot of times, one things we have to remember is, is as disgusted as we may get with what we see we have to understand that are, are friends ICE, our brothers and sisters with customs, or, uh, border patrol, um, they’re acting under the, under the rules and regulations and policies established by the directors of the agency they work for who are acting under the rules and policies established by the, the, the administration who’s put that individual in place.

So, uh, never should we consider the, the those men and women out there wearing the badge, doing the job, whether they’re ICE or, or border patrol folks, as the enemy because they’re not. Um, I think we saw that when the whole, um, split, split reins on a horse during the Haitian bridge crisis was going on that, uh, we’re always ruling quick. Uh, individuals in the United States in the media are always ruling quick to make the law enforcement officer the bad person. And all they are doing is enforcing the laws that are on the books, which they are required and sworn to uphold.

So when we start talking about who is, um, who is liable, it’s, you know, it’s up, it’s way up the chain. That’s where the liability is.

Director Tom Homan:

And I agree with you 100%. I would never advocate for suing a front line officer who’s doing the job that administration tells them to do. I love ICE. I, I love the men and women of border patrol. It’s how I started my career.

14 of them committed suicide last year. And I’m not saying the boarder crisis caused them to take their own lives, but it certainly added to where whatever internal struggles they’re having to see the babies being pulled out of the river and talking, you know…

I’ve talked to girl as young as 10 years old who were raped multiple times by the cartels. I mean, these men and women on the border see horrific things every day. So, you know, God bless each and every one of them for standing on the frontline for us.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Senator McLaurin.

Senator McLaurin.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Um, sir, you testified a minute ago that the, it’s your opinion that the administration has created the boarder crisis on purpose. Is that…

Director Tom Homan:

Yeah.

Senator McLaurin.

That’s your view?

Director Tom Homan:

Yes.

Senator McLaurin.

What aspect of it do you feel was intentional by the administration? Uh, the, the crisis and the results themselves or are you saying just their policies that were intentional resulted a crisis?

Director Tom Homan:

President Biden signed over 90 executive orers, order abolishing everything we did on the Trump administration that gave us the most secure border in my lifetime. And he was… The incoming administration was briefed over 200 times my career law enforcement officers, “If you do this, this is what’s gonna happen. If you do this, this is what’s gonna happen.” And they ignored the advice of a career law enforcement officer with decades of service and did it anyways.

Senator McLaurin.

What do you think the president stands to gain from creating a border crisis on purpose?

Director Tom Homan:

You know, I don’t know. I’m asked that question all the time and, and the only thing I can tell you is I think there’s some ideology. It’s off tilt that people think we don’t need borders. And I think also, uh, what President Biden also did when he signed those 90 executive orders is tu- overturned the Trump census rules, which means millions of people will be counted in the census in sanctuary cities, which is gonna cause a reapportionment of seats in the house.

Now, that is my guess, because I’ve said many times… I’ve talked to all… I’ve talked to everybody on The Hill, right? Republicans and Democrats. Said, “Give me the… Can you give me a downside on a secure border? What’s the downside on a secure border? What’s the downside on less drugs coming across, less women being trafficked, less children drowning in a river, 1,700 migrants, less American dying in a drug overdose>? What’s the downside in a secure border? Why would you come into office and make these moves to unsecure the border?” Which they did.

Now, do I think the president wanted people to die? Absolutely not, but that’s the result of what they’ve done on the border to unsecure it.

Senator McLaurin.

Okay. I mean, I just wanted to clarify exactly what you meant by that because I think it’s … I mean, it’s a pretty remarkable thing for a former ICE director to say the president intends a crisis, right?

I mean, there’s, there’s definitely talking points and media, right wing, left wind, media where people might say something that serious, uh, but, you know, we’re, we’re sitting up here as colleagues from different parties. You served under by part- you know, different administrations, uh, administrations of different parties. It just struck me as a remarkable accusation to say the president-

Director Tom Homan:

[inaudible 00:12:55].

Senator McLaurin.

… intends a crisis and so that’s why I wanted to clarify exactly what you meant.

Director Tom Homan:

I appreciate that. He created this crisis.

Senator McLaurin.

Thank you.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Senator Robertson, do you have any more questions for Mr. Homan?

Senator Robertson:

No, I just, I just wanna… I appreciate your career. Appreciate your dedication to, to the federal government first, but I appreciate your dedication to law enfor- I mean, second. I appreciate your dedication to law enforcement and wearing the badge first.

And, um, the 20 executive orders, I, I find disturbing. And a lot of the things that, that you talk about, um, all come about with aggressive enforcement of laws not only to those here illegally, but to individual born and raised in these communities. And if we’d just enforce the law fairly and justly across the board no matter to whom or, or, or, or what time of day of night, then I think we’d find out we have a much greater country. But thank you again for your service.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Mr. Homan, um, I, I wanna talk about suing the United States because when state troopers come up to me and they say, “We pulled over an illegal alien and there’s nothing we can do about it,” I’m concerned because there’s no higher law enforcement for them to call.

Obviously, when we started this hearing we talked about the cost both financially, you know… I mean, my school superintendents are upset because, you know, they’re having to use county tax dollars to do something they didn’t anticipate doing, right? We also have the humanity cost of it, the, the sex trafficking, all of that.

So, in your opinion, what would you specifically as the state of Georgia sue the United States for? I- i- is it ICE? Is it the FBI? Is it border patrol? Is it just the administration in general?

Director Tom Homan:

The administration. uh, the Florida AGS sued the administration. Uh, the Texas AGS sued the administration. Missouri AGS sued the administration. Uh, Texas, Arizona, Missouri, and Florida. They’re the ones I know of right now. Um, I’d have your AG reach out to any of those, uh, folks and find out how they went about it.

Uh, I can off- I can put you in touch with, uh, groups in DC who I’ve assisted with those AGs with the legal, uh, rama- you know, the legal arguments. Immigration Reform Law Institute, uh, they have attorneys that have worked with Texas and Florida, uh, and Arizona. Uh, so certainly-

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

And how do… Do you know how they, how they sued? I mean, did they just calculate the cost?

Director Tom Homan:

Well, there’s, there’s a lot of, you know, they sue them for the cost of the states. You know, the burden of cost that your, your, the state of Georgia is having because of this influx, and, and that, you know, failure to insecure the border has cost your state how much money? Whether it’s, you know, you know, hospitals are owed million of dollars or your school systems, or your social services system, or police services.

Um, I’m not a lawyer. I can just tell you that, uh, when I wrote affidavits for the state of Texas more like, more about, you know, criminal aliens in their state and how many crimes they committed, and, and how they got into the United States, and the failure of, of, of the administration to take custody of them. So, um, I can certainly put you in touch with the right people who can talk to your attorney general and find out what options he has.

Sen. Colton Moore, Chairman:

Mr. Homan, we’d appreciate that and we’d also appreciate the, uh, the stats. Uh, we will put them, uh, into the record of this committee as well. Um, thank you for making a trip here. I know you were in, in Washington yesterday. So we certainly appreciate that.

Um, to the two senators, uh, who participated in this hearing I wanna, uh, give my sincere gratitude to you, uh, for, uh, asking questions in a bipartisan way so that we may have a better understanding, uh, of this, this human cost in crisis, uh, that faces our state.

So, uh, with that this, uh, committee is adjourned. And, um, look forward to seeing you in the future.”

We are happy but somewhat confused  to report that the Cobb GOP has censured Republican Gov. Kemp for his abject defiance on illegal immigration campaign promises.

Above: Brian Kemp’s first 2018 TV campaign ad.

“Rebuke” and/or “censure”- tomato/tomahtoe. It looks like it has happened twice?

In late May we were sent a Cobb County GOP resolution “rebuking” Gov Brian Kemp on his refusal to honor (or even mention) his detailed 2018 campaign promises on illegal immigration. At least the criminal alien part of illegal immigration. We were happy to see that it matched the draft language we created in April and distributed to various pro-enforcement Republicans around the state.

Now we are told that yesterday the Cobb Republicans voted for a Kemp censure and that it included what appears to be the same language as above. We have not seen a copy of the Cobb documents. Apparently the Marietta Daily Journal has seen them. Below is part of their news (paywall) report. I do not subscribe. Many thanks to John L for sending it over.

Related – Counting the days since Brian Kemp’s #BigTruckTrick

Cobb County GOP censures Gov. Kemp as former party chair resigns

By Jon Gillooly jgillooly@mdjonline.com Oct 1, 2021

Cobb GOP Chair Salleigh Grubbs said the party approved three resolutions at its committee meeting Thursday night at Marietta City Hall.

One resolution censured Kemp for failing to carry out campaign promises concerning illegal immigration. Grubbs said the resolution outlines Kemp’s campaign promises of addressing sanctuary cities, creating a registry of criminal aliens and a track and deport plan.

“And (Kemp) has consistently said, ‘I’ve got a big truck in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take them home myself,’” Grubbs said. “So the resolution portion of it says that Gov. Brian Kemp be censured for his failure to keep his campaign promises and meet his obligations to end illegal immigration in the state of Georgia.”

A second resolution calls on Kemp to prohibit vaccine passports, while asking the Georgia Legislature to prevent businesses from requiring documentation about an individual’s vaccination status. The idea, Grubbs said, is to prevent organizations such as Wellstar Health System from firing staff who refuse to adhere to its vaccine mandate.

A third resolution calls for a statewide forensic audit and criminal investigation into the 2020 and January 2021 elections.

Shepherd, who was not present at the meeting due to a teaching engagement, said he was represented by proxy, and his proxy voted against the resolution condemning Kemp.

Shepherd said the Kemp resolution came up during the GOP’s county convention earlier this year when it was brought by the chair of the party’s resolution committee, Michael Opitz. Shepherd said he shot it down at that time because party rules prohibit censuring someone who is not a member of the county committee. Kemp is not a member.

Yet Grubbs believes the resolution is legitimate.