1/26/09) While we are looking for ways to cut the Georgia budget, imagine the clamor of indignant outrage if any local government in Georgia refused to honor the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision dictating that American taxpayers foot the bill for K-12 education of children who have no legal right to be here.

Or the 1986 federal legislation that provides taxpayer funded emergency medical treatment regardless of ability to pay… or immigration status. Georgia’s emergency rooms long ago became taxpayer subsidized defacto free clinics for illegal aliens.

Any non-compliance with laws that benefit illegals would surely result in howls of “injustice” and angry marches in the streets staged by the same well-funded far-left fringe groups opposing enforcement of our immigration and employment laws.

Not many could doubt that the protests would be front page, top-of-the broadcast news.

Not so for the reality of most Georgia local government’s non-compliance with the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act (GSICA), signed into law by Governor Perdue in 2006 and intended to protect Georgians from the organized crime of illegal immigration.

Essentially a state law saying that in Georgia we must obey existing federal immigration law, state Senator Chip Rogers’ comprehensive immigration reform legislation puts in place safeguards to help insure non-federally mandated benefits go only to those eligible.

“It’s our responsibility to ensure that our famous Georgia hospitality is not abused, that our taxpayers are not taken advantage of and that our citizens are protected,” Governor Perdue said at the bill signing.

GSICA requires a sworn affidavit of either U.S. citizenship or lawful alien status from all applicants for public benefits and use of the federal “Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements” (SAVE) database to verify aliens’ legal status.

Rogers’ law is being ignored.

In addition to welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, or food assistance, public benefits also include “any grant, contract, loan, professional license, or commercial license provided by an agency of a State or local government or by appropriated funds of a State or local government”.

It would be very hard to argue that business licenses issued by cities and counties don’t qualify as commercial licenses.

It should be equally difficult to argue that illegal border crossers who escape apprehension by our brave Border Patrol Agents should be rewarded with permission to do business if they can make it into Georgia.

But that is exactly what is happening.

Nearly three years after GSICA, most local governments in Georgia are not using the mandated affidavit. A January 7, 2009 list provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reveals a total of eight (8) local governments using the SAVE database.

There are 159 counties and 535 cities in Georgia.

About here, many readers may be asking themselves why we would possibly need a law telling local governments not to encourage illegal aliens to enter or remain in Georgia.

That would be playing the common sense card.

The Association County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG) is advising counties that business licenses issued in a business license office are actually “Occupational Tax Certificates” and therefore county regulation of local businesses is not covered by that inconvenient law.

It gets even worse on the municipal level.

For example: While the city of Atlanta is laying off workers, cutting back on services and suffering budget shortfalls, that government seems to be going in the opposite direction of the letter and intent of GSICA.

While in clear defiance of GSICA, Atlanta is in compliance with its own 2004 ordinance stipulating acceptance of the Mexican issued ‘matricula consular’ ID - which is needed only by illegal aliens.

Mayor Franklin’s quote on recognition of the Mexican ID at the time: “it helps to promote public safety and public health by allowing Mexican nationals to access services”.

According to a 2007 Congressional Budget Office Report ( ‘The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the budgets of State and Local Governments’), because of their low wage levels any taxes derived from illegal aliens don’t begin to cover the services they consume for education, health care, and law enforcement.

Who pays the difference? The hapless citizen forced to subsidize the same black market labor that is taking American jobs and lowering wages.

The well respected Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recently published a report estimating that Georgia currently spends about $1.6 billion a year for illegal aliens and their dependents to provide K-12 education, public health care, and incarceration of criminals.

It has been repeatedly proven that illegals migrate out of areas where the law is actually enforced.

Hopefully, state officials looking for ways to cut the budget and provide services and jobs to Americans realize that if local governments are forced to end their amnesty programs for illegal aliens, we can slow the financial bail-out for these criminals.

Enforcement works. We should try it.

The common sense card again.

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D.A. King is a community organizer and president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society which is opposed to illegal immigration and illegal employment. He lobbied in favor of the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act.

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