Reid Backs ‘Path to Legalization’ for Immigrants
NPR [ Listen] March 2006

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says he will support legislation that would give the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States a “path to legalization.” A bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday would do just that.

Read it for yourself.

Today another American – again a cop – has lost his life because the President refuses to secure our borders.

Our sincere sympathy to the family of Cobb County, Georgia Deputy Loren Lilly who died early this morning on his way to work because people with no right to be in the U.S. can easily drive a car here. We will check later to see how the owner of the car got his tags. [ Licenses plates no non-Southerners]

NO MORE DEATHS!

2 arrested in hit-run crash that killed Cobb deputy

By TY TAGAMI
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/31/06

A Cobb County sheriff’s deputy was killed in a hit-and-run wreck while driving to work early Sunday morning.

Police later arrested two men, charging one with felony vehicular homicide and the other with falsely telling police that the car they were in had been stolen.

Deputy Loren Lilly, 41, was headed south on Powder Springs Road near Baltimore Place about 5:40 a.m. when his green Honda Civic collided with another car that had veered from its lane, Marietta police said.

Lilly’s car overturned several times, and he was killed at the scene, said Officer Casey Camp.

The two men in the second car, a white Ford Taurus, ran away before police arrived.

Both men were later arrested.

Along with a vehicular homicide charge, the driver, Joel Camacho Perea, 27, of Marietta faces charges of hit and run, failure to maintain lane and driving without a license.

The passenger, Maurilio Herrera, 23, was charged with a misdemeanor count of falsely reporting a crime to police, Camp said.

Lilly, of Marietta, had worked for the sheriff’s department since 1989 and was assigned to the jail division.

Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren said in a news release that it was a “tragic accident,” and he described Lilly as a “fine deputy.”

Camp said that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has placed a hold on the two men, who were being held Sunday night at Cobb County Jail.

The rest here.

When will we have enough illegal aliens here? Will a path to citizenship stop the killing?

Ask Harry Reid.

Cynthia Tucker on D.A….and D.A. on Cynthia Tucker in May.

Note to readers: Tucker has repeatedly refused to acknowledge my always open challenge to debate illegal immigration in any public arrangment or forum.

Note to Ms. Tucker: From here in Marietta, there are few things that disgust me as much as cowardice.
That fault combined with mindless support for illegal immigration is no way to go through life Ms. Tucker.

Any time Ms. Tucker.
—
From May [ see here for original blog]
Cynthia Tucker wrote a personal attack on me in last week’s AJC.

You can read it here from a different newspaper.

My response letter was published yesterday, along with nine others from the ever shrinking number of AJC readers.

My letter below, with a link to the other nine, which are posted below.

Thanks to those who sent Comrade Tucker a piece of your mind.

She needs exactly that.

From her perch high atop Mount Mindless on the far, far left, Cynthia Tucker’s “invective-filled” personal attack on me is evidence of her obvious desperation and anguish resulting from the knowledge that American voices are being heard on the national illegal immigration disaster.

Illegals wave the flag of Mexico while screaming “Los Angeles is ours!” They carry signs demanding “Amnesty now!” and “This is our continent!” Nearly five years after Sept. 11, millions of people from all over the world continue to illegally cross our unsecured borders every year. English is an optional language in Georgia.

Unlike Tucker, most Americans regard these facts as bad things.

One can only imagine the sleepless nights Tucker must suffer knowing that we even have borders — or how she must secretly regard the brave Border Patrol agents who risk their lives to guard them.

I wear Tucker’s dishonest attack as a badge of honor.

Again.

D.A. KING, Marietta

Nine other letters published in the AJC yesterday:

Cultural change can’t be mandatory

Cynthia Tucker’s column is irrelevant to the issue of illegal immigration, and her inclusion of insults toward D.A. King is irrelevant to her column. What, pray tell, does the topic of cultural change have to do with the issue of illegal immigration? It is ludicrous to say that those who oppose illegal immigration and support enforcement of our immigration laws oppose cultural change.

Why should anyone embrace cultural change forced upon them by people who come here knowingly in violation of our immigration laws and take advantage of services paid for by those of us whose culture they are here to change? Next time I see an illegal immigrant, I suppose I should open up my wallet, hand him $50 and thank him for coming to the United States and changing my culture. After all, he’s really doing me a favor.

My wife is a legal immigrant from Mexico who is now a citizen of the United States. She resents the attitude that illegal immigrants somehow have a right to be in this country, or that they have a right to services such as health care and education paid for by others.

ROBERT COZINE, Decatur

Part of one recipe

Other than the Native Americans, every American came from immigrants. Whether our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, arrived here as an indentured servant, came to escape Nazi rule, came over on a slave ship, arrived in a tiny boat from Cuba, etc., we are all from immigrants.

People need to remember that America was built as a “melting pot.”

ROBIN K. WALDEN, Ellijay

Majority favors U.S. crackdown

Why is Cynthia Tucker so angry at D.A. King? Did he do something to personally offend her, or does she have a dislike for anyone who wants our borders secured?

I read a different poll than the one referenced by Tucker, a poll that’s more in line with King’s viewpoint. In a recent Zogby poll, 69 percent said the tougher House version of the immigration bill was a good or very good idea.

I believe it only fair that you publish King’s response to Tucker’s personal attack. Better yet, I would pay good money to see a live debate between them.

JILL SEYMOUR, Mableton

Europe faces similar problems

I agree with Cynthia Tucker’s plea for reason and decency in the debate about immigration, but reason is being overwhelmed by the magnitude of the volume of illegal immigration. It’s not just a problem for the United States. It’s all over Europe as well. The riots in France last winter give a glimpse of what can happen.

President Bush is trying to get help from his friend, the president of Mexico. That’s a waste of time. He’s asking for something that’s not in Mexico’s interest. The illegal migrants are providing a sizable contribution to the Mexican economy.

Language is a key part of the problem. Migrants put an extra burden on overwhelmed social services because they can’t speak English.

A common language is an essential part of the glue that holds this country together. It is an important advantage to Americans that English is the lingua franca of our times.

LARRY HYMO, Athens

Want to stay? Learn language

The rosy picture that Cynthia Tucker attempts to paint of illegal immigration in the story of her niece, Irene, is marred by one fact: Irene’s grandfather, a U.S. resident for 23 years, is “less than fluent” in English.

I have encountered numerous Hispanics living here for many years who learn little or no English. This failure to assimilate linguistically is unprecedented in our history, and attempts to minimize the problem are folly.

For example, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday that 85 percent of 911 calls in Gwinnett County needing translators are Hispanics. The language requirement the president and others are calling for is an absolute must.

WESLEY ROSS, Augusta

Newcomers not all created equal

I see that Cynthia Tucker’s journalistic prowess and command of the language far exceed that which her sister’s father-in-law possesses; but her entire article is based on two flawed premises.

> Segregation is comparable to resistance to illegal immigration: Upon examination of the Constitution, we have found that both racial segregation and illegitimate entry to this country are illegal.

> Mexican immigrants are no different than European immigrants: No, Ms. Tucker, the difference is that the vast majority of Europeans came here legally.

DAVID D. DALY, Annandale, Va.

Services stretched to breaking point

Why does the left have to play the race card on illegal immigration? If the people coming in overwhelming droves across the border were white Canadians rather that brown Mexicans, most of us would feel the same way.

There is a reason nations have immigration laws: so that it is done in moderation and fairly, where everyone gets in line and waits their turn. This protects legal citizens from the problems that have already occurred in the Southwest and California: hospitals being bankrupted, social services stretched to the limit with benefit fraud, and schools struggling to serve large numbers of illegal immigrants who can’t speak English.

RONALD HOFFMAN, Sandy Springs

Tucker fan flees

How dare Cynthia Tucker call D.A. King a racist!

Funny how I am Hispanic, and King and I are friends. King is a wonderful and good American.

I used to love to read Tucker’s columns, but now I hate them. Illegal aliens and their supporters carried the Mexican flag at their rallies, and only because Americans fumed did they switch to American flags.

Tucker’s anti-American views are disgusting.

PRISCILLA ESPINOZA, Nuevo, Calif.

King, others want their country back

I have been to several rallies where D.A. King has spoken, and he is no more racist than Cynthia Tucker.

Like King, there are 280 million other American citizens who are tired of having their voices ignored. We are tired of having protesters march in the streets, screaming in Spanish that they demand citizenship, and having the AJC sympathize with lawbreakers simply because they work hard.

MICHELLE BROCK, Lawrenceville

Home

The Wall Street Journal on the Dustin Inman Society and the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act

Grassroots groups boost clout in immigration fight
September 28, 2006
By Miriam Jordan, The Wall Street Journal

In Marietta, Ga., the local grass-roots group is the Dustin Inman Society, named for a teenage boy killed several years ago in a car accident that allegedly involved an illegal immigrant. The group is led by D. A. King, a 54-year-old former Marine who sports a close-cropped haircut and says he was snubbed by Mexicans who moved into a house in his neighborhood in the 1990s. He says he grew even more frustrated when local and immigration officials ignored his calls to take action against the house, which he believed was overcrowded with illegal immigrants.

Mr. King shuttered his insurance business of 20 years in 2003 to devote himself full-time to educating Georgians about the adverse impact of illegal immigration, organize rallies around the issue and work the halls of the Georgia state legislature.

The crowning of his efforts was the passage in April of the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, a state bill chockablock with provisions to stop illegal immigration that will begin to go into effect in July 2007. “We were sliding down a slippery slope on the way to ‘Georgiafornia,'” says Mr. King, referring to California, which is often used as the poster child of excessive Latino immigration.

A key proponent of the immigration bill, his single most effective weapon was organizing protests at the Capitol “for the media and state governments to see,” says Mr. King. He also praised the bill on radio and in newspaper columns. “I made it impossible for politicians to ignore the issue,” he says.

Republican State Senator Chip Rogers, who wrote the Georgia bill, says Mr. King was “instrumental in ensuring people interested in illegal immigration were aware of the bill. He sent lots of email, went on radio often and wrote in local papers about it. He touched just about every potential media outlet.”

Entire article here.

From Business Week, May 1, 2006

Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands
States such as Georgia are cracking down on illegal labor as reform stalls on the Hill
By Coleman Cowan and Brian Grow

At the Apr. 17 rally in Atlanta, a crowd waved banners that read “Kick Me, I’m a Citizen,” and “Hola Georgiafornia, Adios Borders.” King, 54, introduced a doctor, a legal Hispanic, and a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives, Catherine Davis. She called on officials to bring a bus to the next pro-immigrant rally to take illegals “to the border.” When King’s turn came, he told the crowd: “We are here because our federal government refuses to enforce our immigration or employment laws.” He says he has talked with fellow activists in 19 other states about exporting the Georgia strategy.

The entire article is here. I am posting news items from 2006 in an effort to illustrate that we are making a difference.

Online- only interview here.

In Georgia Law, a Wide-Angle View of Immigration

Rick Lyman in the New York Times, May, 2006

ATLANTA — With dozens of states rushing to fill the vacuum left by long-stalled Congressional action on immigration legislation, none have rushed faster and further than Georgia, which recently passed a law that all sides describe as among the most far-reaching in the nation.

Rather than focusing tightly on restricting access to specific benefits or cracking down on employment or bogus identity documents, as other states tried to do, Georgia took the blunderbuss approach, passing a bill hitting as many areas as possible.

The new law requires Georgia employers to use a federal database to verify that their workers are legal, instead of using a voluntary system that was widely ignored. Recipients of most state benefits, including welfare and Medicaid, must prove they are in the country legally, although some medical services are exempt. Workers who cannot provide a Social Security number or other taxpayer identification will be required to pay a 6 percent state withholding tax, taken from their paychecks.

Jailers must inform the federal authorities if anyone incarcerated is in the country illegally, and the local authorities are specifically authorized to seek training to enforce federal immigration laws. And a new criminal offense, human trafficking, has been added to the books to crack down on those who bring in large groups of immigrants.

The bill, known as the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, was signed by Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, on April 17 and will begin to take effect on July 1, 2007, with various provisions taking effect over the next several years.

Ann Morse, director of the Immigrant Policy Project at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said no other state had gone so far as Georgia in trying to restrict immigrant benefits and rights since Proposition 187 in California (passed in 1994 and ruled unconstitutional four years later) and Proposition 200 in Arizona (passed in 2004). Both measure denied many social services to illegal immigrants.

“There are other bills in legislatures around the country that are somewhat comprehensive, but nothing as comprehensive as Georgia’s,” Ms. Morse said.

This came about, the bill’s author said, because Republican leaders in Georgia decided that public support was growing for such an initiative.

“We decided that the best thing to do was to take a lot of ideas and put them together in one bill,” said State Senator Chip Rogers, a Republican representing some of Atlanta’s far northern suburbs, who wrote the new law and spearheaded its passage. “The climate was certainly right.”

I hope that you will read the rest here…what we are already proving is that enforcement works…illegals are now leaving Georgia.

We wish Congressman Norwood all the best for the new year.

Press Alert

December 8, 2006

Norwood Released from Hospital After Cancer Treatment

(Washington, DC) – U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood is reported in good condition and recuperating in his Washington, DC apartment after being released earlier today from Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, following treatment this week for non-small cell cancer.

“Once again, I can’t say enough about the great physicians and staff at Inova,” says Norwood. “I am absolutely confident in their ability to eradicate this latest tumor, and I think we’re well on the way to that goal. I plan on being back up to speed when the gavel falls to open the new Congress in January.”

Norwood was initially treated for non-small cell cancer in November 2005, when doctors at Inova Fairfax surgically removed a small tumor from his native left lung. Last month, Inova physicians discovered another non-small cell tumor had developed near Norwood’s liver, which they treated this week with chemotherapy.

Tumor development is a frequent side effect of the immune suppression drugs Norwood takes due to a 2004 lung transplant. Norwood received the transplant in response to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease.

From the Field Hearings here in Georgia in August…photos here [ see photo gallery] and here.

God Bless Congressman Charlie Norwood.

Statement of D.A. King
Before the Committee on Education and The WorkforceSubcommittee on Workforce Protections

Field Hearing on:
“Immigration: Economic Impact on American Workers and their Wages”
in Gainesville, Georgia [Official page here]

August 14, 2006

Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, good morning.

My name is D.A. King. I am president of The Dustin Inman Society, which is a Georgia-based coalition of Americans of many backgrounds and ethnicities dedicated to educating the public on the consequences of illegal immigration.

I am grateful for the opportunity to provide testimony today regarding the recently passed Senate bill addressing our borders, the illegal immigration crisis in America and the impact of the Senate legislation on the American workforce.

In an effort to make clear my own level of concern with the illegal immigration crisis in our nation, I would like to make it known that three years ago I put aside my own business and have exhausted my personal savings in a full-time effort to educate myself and others on the issue.

As someone who has chosen to be active in a grass-roots effort to encourage my government to secure our borders and equally apply American law, I am in constant contact with countless American citizens on the issue – including immigrants who have obeyed American laws in their effort to join the American family.

My adopted sister is a real, legal, immigrant who came from Korea.

The thousands of concerned Americans who have contacted me over the years share a common theme in their questions, observations and complaints. They ask why employers are allowed to hire illegal labor in violation of existing laws – and why a nation that has put men on the moon and has built, and maintains, more than 46,000 miles of interstate highways has not used that expertise to stop illegal entries into their country.

Most Americans are aware of the “one time” amnesty of 1986. They see that it did nothing to secure our borders, end illegal immigration or discourage employers from hiring illegal aliens. Despite the concerted effort of many in the Senate to label S 2611 as anything but amnesty-again, most Americans with whom I speak understand it to be exactly that.

Ignoring the climate of fear that has been created to intimidate them, American citizens are coming out of the shadows and asking why they are required to obey American laws while many employers, bankers and people with no legal right to be in the U.S. suffer no punishment for not doing so.

I have no acceptable answers for them. I sadly admit that I find myself asking similar questions.

For many of us, the new American Dream is to have borders as secure as are Mexico’s and immigration and employment laws that are as enthusiastically enforced.

Absent their ability to speak here, I respectfully ask that today I be regarded as a humble voice of the millions of Americans who reject the senate bill and its intent in its entirety.

Time constraints prohibit even a brief outline of the many flaws in the Senate bill. Among those mistakes, one of the most brilliant examples of the senate’s failure to protect the American worker is the provision that would effectively expand the Davis Bacon Act of 1931 to allow foreign workers to be paid a different – and higher – “prevailing wage” than Americans who work at the same job.

While most Americans – including myself – are not experts on Davis Bacon, we find it easy to understand the injustice involved if the effect of the senate bill would be to “legalize” illegal labor and then provide an avenue whereby that labor then be rewarded with pay and benefits not available to all American workers.

Further, most Americans understand that the constant reference to “temporary” or “guest workers” in the senate bill amounts to an attempt to redefine very basic words in the English language.

Not many of us consider a worker as “temporary” if that worker is offered a path to citizenship with permanent resident status at the end of the allotted time on his work visa. I have many American friends who have been employed in countries all over the world as guest workers. All of them report the laws that demand their timely departure from the host nation at the prescribed date are vigorously enforced.

None of these former guest workers were offered citizenship in the nations in which they temporarily worked.

Guest workers, by definition, and if indeed truly required, should be made to clearly understand that the period of employment in the United States is finite and that bringing their families and setting up permanent residence is not part of the bargain.

American taxpayers should not be required to subsidize the low wage labor.

We do not have time here today for me to share the many stories from citizens who report instances of their wages decreasing because of competition from illegal labor and the willingness of employers hiring that labor in violation of existing law while bypassing Americans as job applicants.

Sadly, I am personally acquainted with Americans who have lost their family businesses because they refused to violate immigration and labor laws and could not compete with others in their trade who lacked the integrity to make similar decisions.

Mr. Charles Shafer of Lawrenceville, Georgia is but one example. Mr. Shafer is a second generation framing contractor – a carpenter – who has declared bankruptcy and endured years of unemployment due to competing contractors hiring illegal labor who will work for considerably less than he was earning ten years ago.

With his permission, I attach to my written testimony Mr. Shafer’s account of his experiences and ask that it be noted that it was written more than two years ago.

I also submit a written account from Mr. Jeff Hermann of Oxford, Georgia who operates a pine straw/landscaping business. Mr. Hermann has lost considerable business and earnings to illegal labor and has been forced to apply for welfare as a result. Mr. Hermann has agreed to having his story become record as well.

Mr. Shafer and Mr. Hermann share very similar stories and are but two of thousands that have come to my attention from Americans who are working for a better life in their own country.

None of them sees the Senate bill as a remedy to their plight.

I am acquainted with many tax-paying Americans who have been denied employment because they do not speak Spanish.

I have never spoken to anyone who can recount examples of American wages increasing because of immigration, either legal or illegal.

Most Americans understand that low-skilled jobs in America pay many times more than the same jobs in most of the world. The American people recognize that fact to be a magnet that draws illegal immigration into the United States. No reasonable person I am aware of blames anyone for wanting to live and work in the United States, just as no one I am aware of is of the opinion that we can continue to allow any worldwide “willing worker” to replace Americans in our job market.

We also understand that if it is possible to verify a credit card transaction at our local department store, it is also possible to verify employment eligibility in the United States without putting an undue burden on American employers.

As president of the Dustin Inman Society, I have enrolled in the Basic Pilot Program. I am a program administrator and have used that system to verify my own eligibility to work in the United States. Until a better system is designed, it is my educated observation that one immediate goal for Congress should be to make Basic Pilot verification mandatory and increase funding to do so.

Please allow me to conclude by saying that with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, we were promised that Americans would have secure borders and equal protection under the law in the workplace. Not many of us are willing to remain silent while similar promises are made without real enforcement teeth in whatever new legislation is made into law.

I respectfully implore you to do all that is possible from your elected office to secure American borders, restore the rule of law to our nation and create a state of fairness to American workers.

Remembering the amnesty of 1986, it is my belief that the Senate legislation would accomplish none of these things.

Thank you Congressmen.

I welcome any questions.

D.A. King

Written account of Mr. Charles Shafer, carpenter, Lawrenceville Georgia.

Submitted with permission.

To be attached to D.A. King testimony.

My family has been in the residential construction business in one form or another for over 5 generations now. In the past 2 generations of my family most of us (my dad, 3 brothers, 6 uncles, and several cousins) have been residential framing contractors-carpenters.

As recently as 5-6 years ago we were the most sought after framers in the business. Our reputations preceded us as being the best of the best. Now we are all either unemployed or are struggling to survive economically.

I started my own business in 1988. Until that point I had worked for my father mostly. We have always had so much work at times we would turn work down.

I felt I had a very successful and lucrative business until late 1998 and the beginning of the year 1999. Then around the end of 1999 and the start of 2000 the calls slowed down and most of us were not getting as many from the builders whom we had worked for in the past as well as no calls at all from any new builders.

I remember it was around the end of 1999 it seemed on a daily basis someone would come by the job and ask if I needed help or if I knew anyone who did. They always made the statement even then “I can have as much help as you need here in the morning”. Also I would like to state at that time I was working 2 legal immigrants with proper documentation, social security numbers, a driver’s license, etc. (so I believed)

I tried every thing I could think of for the next year or so to save my business and career. At the time I even tried not only getting out and riding around trying to meet new people, leaving business cards on job sites, but also sending mailings to almost every builder listed in the Atlanta Home Builders Association announcing my availability and desire to work. These efforts were basically fruitless.

Every where I went I saw more and more what appeared to be Mexican crews and less and less American crews doing the work. For a short period of time thereafter, about a year or so, instead of the most of my work being all new work it became more in the field of remodeling. That eventually went away also.

During the year 2000 the phone calls started slowing down and eventually stopped. Even though the residential construction in Atlanta was obviously ongoing at an unbelievable pace I could not find work. Whenever I did find a new subdivision starting and some one to talk to I was told I was the wrong color and I have been told I would not work for the wages they paid. At the wages they were offering, they were right, there was no way to compete.

There’s not any way then or now in my mind to compete with illegal labor. The work I was offered, when I was offered work was at such a reduced standard wage, less than half of what the same work paid only a few years prior, a person could not remain legal and still endure all the labor cost or insurance cost or taxes associated with trying to run a proper business.

I even tried for a year or so to employ a mixture of Americans and Mexicans.

Then all Mexicans. It doesn’t take long for them to become Americanized. By this I’m referring to the fact the only reason they wanted to work for me instead of one of their own was because it did not take them long to come to the conclusion an American employer would pay them a higher wage than a Mexican employer. Then I became aware that they were all illegally here in the U.S. This resulted in my having to pay all associated taxes on their behalf. That’s when I decided it was not worth it anymore and basically gave up. I wasn’t getting any phone calls for work and you surely couldn’t ride around and find any work. The illegals had it all.

Even though I have never announced to anyone in this field of my intentions to quit, to this date I have only had 2 phone calls for work in the past 3 years or so. These came from people I had done personal homes for in the past not from any builders. More or less I have tried to explain to them I had retired, not by choice, but because I could not compete against an ever increasing immigrant population.

I used to have to be very careful when I was talking to someone not to use the “illegal” terminology. Whenever I did people would respond with an ignorant comment to the effect these people were not illegal and I would respond by stating I had personally met several hundred these past few years and not a one were legal.

Since post 9-11 I have tried repeatedly to find work. My families work (the one or two remaining) is so sparse they can offer little or no help and still survive themselves. At almost 51 years old, even though I feel I have many good years left, no one I have met wants to employ me.

I have applied for many Superintendent positions to no avail. Hardly a response for so long, I finally gave that avenue up also. Why not I often ask myself. I have so much experience and knowledge about residential construction from start to finish.

It is, believe it or not, almost understandable to me because of the availability of such a younger work force now. Plus I don’t speak Spanish. I also usually know more about the business, codes etc., than the people I have tried to go to work for and I think that may have intimidated them some.

We as Americans will work and have worked with the Mexicans. It’s a fact they will not return the favor. Do you know of any American who works for a Mexican in the construction business? I don’t.

I was taught from day-one a home is usually the largest investment a person makes in life. It was instilled into my natural behavior from childhood to do the very best job possible for a person and not to cut corners or to walk away from an error or mistake. The majority of my relatives had the same raising and that’s what made us once upon a time the most desirable in the residential construction field. Now this business seems to be only about profit margins and how fast you can finish a job. Not many seem to care about quality anymore.

I have continually searched for a job and would now accept one even if its a floor sweeping job. But I have come to the conclusion that I am unemployable especially since 9-11 and with all the illegal immigrants available.

We as a family of 5, a daughter 14, a daughter 10, and a son 5, have barely survived these past few years. My wife and I filed bankruptcy last year. We had already refinanced our modest home which we only owed 3 years on….. trying to survive.

I am a proud man even to this day. I have absolutely refused any hand outs in life and will not accept one now.

Please understand residential framing/construction was to be a career I have looked forward to since childhood. It was a dream job for me even though the work was hard and the hours long. The pay while it lasted was great. We lived the American dream….if we wanted something we got it and got up the next day went to work and paid for it.

I can’t imagine what I will do in life now that the illegal immigrants are present in such enormous numbers in today’s society. I am adamant I will figure it out, how and which way to go; right now I’m not sure. I’m just not willing to give up just yet. My family surely deserves more than what illegal immigration has brought into their lives.

If you have any more questions or need anything else please feel free to contact me.

Charles Shafer, Jr.

Written account of Mr. Jeff Hermann, landscaper of Oxford, Georgia

To be attached to testimony of D.A. King

My name is Jeff Hermann. My partner and I run a small landscaping
business called “The Pinestraw Guys”. We’ve been at it now for almost eight
years. Our work is fairly labor-intensive, as it involves spreading the
pinestraw in the decorative ‘islands’ of peoples’ homes and businesses.

When we started the business, we didn’t have any customers, so we’d load
up the truck and knock on doors all day looking for jobs. It was tough
at first, but as time went by we grew. After two years we had enough
customers to stop knocking on doors and hire someone to help us.

Our customers loved our work and referred their friends and neighbors to us.
Life was getting pretty good. We hired a few more guys, and the business
continued to grow.

That’s all changed now.

About two and a half years ago we started noticing a drop-off in our business.
Several of our accounts had stopped calling. When we called them to find out why, they said simply that we had been under-bid by a competitor. I
had a hard time believing that because we operate on a very small
mark-up to begin with. Now, I’m not a bashful man by any means, so I
called my competition and asked them how they could do it so cheap.
“Simple,” was the reply, “I hired some Mexicans down at the Home Depot.
They’re illegals, so they work really cheap.”

I know of several landscape contractors who now do the same thing. They
pay these illegal aliens 5 or 6 bucks an hour, cash under the table of
course, and pocket the difference. Well, MOST of the difference. The
rest they give to their customers in the form of lower prices. That’s
all good for the contractor and the customer, but not so good for me.
Suddenly I’m in competition with someone who’s willing to do this work
for minimum wage or less.

By last fall my income had dropped over 50%, and I had to apply for food
stamps in order to feed my kids. I also applied for Medicaid because I
could no longer afford my health insurance. I qualified for the food
stamps (Thank God) but my income, less than $200 a week by then, was too
high to get Medicaid. While talking to my caseworker about this, she let
it slip that if I had been an illegal alien, I would have qualified for
‘emergency’ Medicaid and been covered by it that day. Needless to say,
my jaw almost hit the floor.

Let me re-cap what I’ve been through because of illegal immigration.

My business has been cut in half.

I’ve had to lay off American workers.

I can no longer afford health insurance.

I’ve had to take welfare.

And to top it off, I can’t even get Medicaid.

I’m not asking for handouts, I’m asking for that ‘level playing field’
our President loves to espouse. Secure the border. Deport illegal aliens.
Enforce the law. Give me my life back.

Please.

Jeff Hermann

Personal information/ other information.

D.A. King

I have been studying the consequences of our unsecured borders and the resulting illegal immigration for more than four years and have been regarded as an expert on the issue on various network television broadcasts including the CNN, CBS, PBS and FOX networks as well as many nationwide radio shows including NPR that address the issue.

In 2003, I put down my own insurance business of twenty-five years and began to organize public rallies, to lobby lawmakers and educate people on the issue of illegal immigration at my own expense. I have spent our life savings, sold my stocks and refinanced my house to do so.

I have been to the U.S. – Mexican border three times in the last two years and watched as brave Border Patrol agents risk their lives to guard those borders and then watched with disgust as the illegal aliens who escape apprehension there are hired here in Georgia and then demand the rights and privileges of citizens and legal residents.

I founded the Dustin Inman Society in 2005 in an attempt to raise public awareness on facts surrounding illegal immigration and I write a periodic column on the topic in the Marietta Daily Journal.

The Dustin Inman Society is named for a friend’s son who lost his life in 2000 because of an automobile crash involving a driver who is an illegal alien.

In my Marietta home of twenty-two years, the only house I have ever owned, I have lived across the street from people that I now know were in the U.S. illegally. The number of persons living in that three-bedroom house at times numbered as many as eighteen.

Having spoken out in the demand that American borders be secured as is required by the Constitution, that American law be equally and fully applied and that the English language be the common language of our nation, I have been called a variety of derogatory names and labeled “un-American” by the many who profit from the crime of illegal immigration and employment.

I am a former Marine [1970-1971] and vividly remember being promised no-cost medical care for the rest of my life as a condition of my military service. In 2004, my application to the Veterans Administration for that medical care was denied due to a means test that began in 2003. I have watched since then as my tax dollars go to provide federally mandated no-cost medical care to people with no legal right to be in the United States – without any mention of such a means test.

I am qualified to testify on the effects of illegal immigration because literally thousands of Americans come to me with stories of injustice in their lives caused by that organized crime and ask me to tell their stories to elected officials who they trust to remedy those cases of inequality under the law.

I would like to respectfully note that I have reached the point at which I truly wish I did not know what I have learned.

D.A. King

The Bear Stearns report this article cites is two years old now…things have not gotten any better.

Here is a link to the original report.

This from Barron’s on the report:

The Underground Economy
Illegal Immigrants and Others Working Off the Books Cost the U.S. Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Unpaid Taxes By Jim McTague
Barron’s Magazine April 2005

America has two economies: First, there’s the legitimate economy, in which craftsmen are licensed and employers and employees pay taxes. Then there’s the fast-growing underground economy, where millions of nannies, construction workers, landscapers and others are paid off the books, their incomes largely untaxed. The best guess as to the size of the output of this shadow economy is about $970 billion, or nearly 9% that of the real economy. It could soon pass $1 trillion.

What is largely fueling the underground economy, experts say, is the nation’s growing ranks of low-wage, illegal immigrants. The government puts this population at 8.5 million, but that may represent a serious undercount. Robert Justich, a senior managing director at Bear Stearns Asset Management, makes a persuasive case in a recent research report that illegal immigrants actually number 18 million to 20 million. If that’s true, the economic implications are profound and could help shape this year’s debates over both immigration policies and tax reform.

Measuring the size of the underground economy is tough, since most of its denizens seek to remain anonymous. But convincing anecdotal evidence and a number of academic studies suggest that it is expanding briskly-probably by an average of 5.6% a year since the early 1990s, edging out the real economy.

In the process, the underground economy is undermining the effectiveness of the IRS. If the IRS could collect all the taxes it says that it is owed from the underground economy in a given year, then the current budget deficit would disappear overnight. And if the IRS could collect these taxes every year, then the nation would have surpluses far into the future. The IRS has estimated that its tax gap-the amount of taxes owed minus the amount collected-is around $311 billion in any given year. A new estimate due out this year could be as high as $400 billion, says former IRS Commissioner Donald Alexander

Read the rest here and try to convince yourself that giving the more than 20 million illegals a path to citizenship- again- will solve the problem or discourage 20 million more from coming.

Bonus education: from Joel Millman
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
America the Irresistible
Conditions at Home Improve, but Foreigners Still Want to Come Here

Over the decades, the search for economic opportunity has led millions of foreigners to leave their homelands and seek better fortunes in America, legally or illegally. But if economic conditions improved in other countries, wouldn’t these foreigners be more tempted to stay home?

The U.S. has long believed that they would, and that assumption has been the basis for some of Washington’s free-trade policies that aim to spread economic growth throughout Latin America.

The reality, however, is the very opposite. Economic and social trends in Latin America, including improved growth and liberalized trade and travel among its nations, are actually creating new incentives and opportunities for would-be migrants to head for the U.S. More here.

excerpts from BASIC ECONOMICS: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell

To understand the effects of price control, it is necessary to understand how prices rise and fall in a free market. There is nothing esoteric about it, but it is important to be very clear about what happens. Prices rise because the amount demanded exceeds the amount supplied at existing prices. Prices fall because the amount supplied exceeds the amount demanded at existing prices. The first case is called a “shortage” and the second is called a “surplus”–but both depend on existing prices.

Simple as this might seem, it is often misunderstood–sometimes with disastrous consequences. A closer examination shows why shortages persist when the government sets a maximum price lower than what it would be in a free market and why a surplus persists when the government sets minimum prices for farm products higher than these prices would be in a free

Please read the rest here and be prepared for the howls of “we need more cheap [tax payer subsidized] labor” from Bush and the sell-out politicians that is coming soon.