February 19, 2007

Lou Dobbs video…..borderless continent…send to your Congressman PLEASE

Posted by D.A. King at 2:04 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

YouTube video of Lou Dobbs show explaining Bush integration of North American continent. Here.

I beg you to send this to both of our Senators and your congressman with a request that they take a position on the borderless continent.

NOTE! Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson has already taken a position ( below ), he should be thanked!

From Senator Isakson last week:

“The United States for over 220 years has enjoyed the freedoms and responsibilities of an independent nation. We have served as a beacon to the world of the glories of a democratic republic. To allow our country to participate in a rumored ‘North American Union’ would take away our sovereignty and place an undue burden on the citizens of America.

“It would be a terrible mistake for the U.S. government to engage in any proposal that would diminish our independence or lessen our strength. I wholeheartedly oppose any such effort.”

MALDEF, Anheuser-Busch and American politics from American Spectator

Posted by D.A. King at 1:48 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

Special Report
Anheuser-Busch v. Alito
By Carl F. Horowitz
Published 1/12/2006

Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, knows the instincts of anti-business activists as well as anyone. And his advice to corporate leaders who contemplate buying off their tormentors is this: Don’t. Political bribery won’t work, except maybe in the short run.

“A lot of companies think that by admitting their failures to accusers, they can buy peace,” he said at a conference last November co-organized by his group, the National Legal and Policy Center and the Free Enterprise Education Institute. “Many corporations admit in effect, ‘We know we’re slimy. But we’re going to set aside some of our ill-gotten gains for good purposes.'” Too often, “good purposes” tend to be organizations threatening to sue or boycott them to advance their own anti-business goals.

Companies such as Toyota and Pepsico for years have elevated to a virtual art form the practice of buying off hard-Left plaintiffs and protesters. You can add Anheuser-Busch to the list. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, indicates Anheuser-Busch in a recent annual report as a “Partner.” That means that it donated at least $100,000, hardly pocket change.

A company the size of Anheuser-Busch, one would think, would orient its philanthropic giving toward organizations supportive of its interests: namely, boosting beer sales and strengthening free enterprise as a whole. MALDEF, to make a long story short, is not such an organization. For nearly 40 years it has waged a ceaseless battle to create what amounts to unofficial Mexican ethnic principalities on U.S. soil, blocking immigration reform, promoting linguistic separatism, and increasing government public-assistance spending on Hispanics. Such wish-list items are not good for any company’s bottom line, never mind Anheuser-Busch’s.

MALDEF, as its name implies, files lawsuits — lots of them. And the last thing the group’s leaders want to see is someone sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court predisposed toward making deportations easier, striking down mandatory bilingual education, or preventing issuance of driver’s licenses as IDs to illegal immigrants — in other words, opposing the sorts of things MALDEF advocates.

In Judge Samuel A. Alito, now facing long-awaited Senate confirmation hearings, MALDEF has such an opponent. Alito, having served 15 years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, has left a modest-sized paper trail suggesting as much.

MALDEF, let us understand, plays to win. And win it often does. Over the years the organization has filed successful suits to mandate affirmative-action hiring in Denver public schools, force employers to refrain from requiring Hispanic employees to speak English on the job, and require Virginia public colleges and universities to accept illegal immigrant students at in-state tuition.

Alito’s presence on the Supreme Court could derail some of these victories. Let’s take a brief look at his track record. The rest here.

Bonus info here. The Open Borders Lobby and the Nation’s Security After 9/11
By William Hawkins and Erin Anderson
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 21, 2004

February 18, 2007

Watch video of illegals being apprehended in Arizona: Why not in Georgia?

Posted by D.A. King at 5:51 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

From American Border Patrol

Click here and then look for the blurb copied below… hit link to the video.

Operation B.E.E.F. Report – After Action February 8
This video shows the ABP Border Hawk M as it aids in the apprehension of two human smugglers near Naco, Arizona. It also shows how the USBP captured their charges. The report underlines the weaknesses of border cameras when working in Southern Arizona

This is from today’s edition of American Patrol, if you are trying to see video on anothe rday, please go back to news stories from Sunday February 18.

February 17, 2007

Photo of the day…more please!

Posted by D.A. King at 2:41 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

Photo of the day

Thanks to the U.S. Border Patrol Agents who risk their lives every day to protect our borders.

Thanks to Glenn Spencer and American Patrol for the photo.

Bank of America encouraging illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. How to voice your outrage from Roy Beck at NumbersUSA

Posted by D.A. King at 7:43 am - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

Dear reader: Please know that the bank Sam Zamarripa founded and of which he is Marketing Director ( United Americas Bank)has been opening accounts, issuing credit cards and making mortgage loans to illegal aliens for years. See here for our past rallies there.

It may be time for another!

Embracing illegals. Here

Bank credit card aimed at illegal immigrants
Bank of America’s card for those with no Social Security number, credit …Here.

The law…. 8 USC 1324
Any person who— (iv) encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law; or
(v)
(I) engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or
(II) aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts,
shall be punished as provided in subparagraph (B).
(B) A person who violates subparagraph (A) shall, for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs—
(i) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(i) or (v)(I) or in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(ii), (iii), or (iv) in which the offense was done for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain, be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both;

Send this email far and wide for more Americans to cancel business with Bank of America

Below from NumbersUSA


DEAR OPPONENTS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION,

Forward this email to everybody you think might want to protest the Bank of America’s latest program to improve the “quality of life” of illegal aliens in this country.

NumbersUSA will pay the phone charges, for as many Americans who wish, to send faxes off our website saying that they won’t do business with Bank of America until it stops aiding and abetting illegal aliens.

Tell all of your friends to go to:

www.NumbersUSA.com

On the home page, they (and you) can click on FAX CONGRESS FREE to send a free protest fax to the Bank of America.

A large percentage of NumbersUSA’s 250,000-plus members appear to be outraged at the news that the Bank of America is intentionally offering credit to improve the “quality of life” of illegal aliens. (You can see more detailed stories on our website.)

You have pressed us for two days to offer faxes to the Bank.

OK, but if you want to have any real effect on this giant institution, you are going to have to try to get tens of thousands of other folks to send faxes, too.

It is up to you whether this becomes a grassroots phenomenon or just another outrage allowed to pass into public acceptability. in this email:
1. Other ways to contact Bank officials

2. The Bank’s side of the story
.
actions in brief:
1. Let others know of the free opportunity to let Bank of America know how they feel — forward this email.

2. Please send a free fax to your U.S. Representative asking him/her to co-sponsor H.R. 938. It would eliminate Chain Migration which is the No. 1 reason immigration has quadrupled to more than a million a year from the 250,000 of traditional annual averages and the 1950s and 1960s. You’ll see the free fax when you click to see the fax to the Bank.

www.NumbersUSA.com
.
donate now:
This faxing system is 100% financed by the voluntary generosity of the 250,000-
plus Americans who use it.

Please click here to make any sized donation to keep this grassroots phenomenon strong and effective.
how to reply:
Please do not click ‘Reply’ button to respond to this message.
To comment about this Alert or to request tech help, click here and fill out our Help Form.
Our staff mans the Help Desk 18 hours a day.

ADDITIONAL WAYS TO CONTACT BANK OF AMERICA
You can call:

* Toll-Free California: 1-800-622-8731
* Toll-Free All Other States: 1-800-432-1000
* Corporate Affairs: 415-717-0195

and write a letter:

Bank of America
Kenneth D. Lewis
Chairman, CEO and President
Bank of America Corporate Center
100 North Tryon Street
Charlotte, North Carolina 28255


THE BANK’S SIDE OF THE STORY

Bank officials have been quoted saying that they aren’t trying to make a political statement on immigration policy but just trying to make a buck.

Money is their aim, they say, to increase profits by providing financial credit for what they call the great “untapped” market of potential customers among the illegal population in the United States.

“These people are coming here for quality of life, and they deserve somebody to give them a chance to achieve that quality of life,” says Brian Tuite, the bank’s director of Latin America card operations, who hopes the illegal aliens will be able to buy homes, cars, furniture and anything else it takes to settle down permanently in this country.

The Bank’s effort directly undercuts federal Attrition Through Enforcement & Self-Deportation programs designed to make the quality of life low enough and uncomfortable and unpredictable enough that illegal aliens pay their own way to go back home.

Many in Grassroots America feel that the Bank of America needs to be made an example for the rest of corporate America lest the temptation of pure, unpatriotic greed drive other businesses to abandon the American people and the rule of law, as well.

Good luck in circulating this opportunity,

— ROY (Beck)

MyFox Atlanta | Some Cherokee Co. Inmates Could Face Deportation

Posted by D.A. King at 7:32 am - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

To see what Cherokee County is doing about illegal aliens who violate even more laws…click here.

February 15, 2007

North American Union would be terrible mistake: D.A.’s Marietta Daily Journal column today

Posted by D.A. King at 1:25 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

The column below ran in today’s Marietta Daily Journal. I have added some hyperlinks to educate the reader.
Original MDJ print version here.

North American Union would be terrible mistake

Note from D.A – added here 8 May 2007, a three minute video from CNBC on the borderless continent and the AMERO
D.A. King
Columnist
February 15, 2007

“There shall be open borders”
– A recurring 1984 proposal promoted by the Wall Street Journal for a five-word amendment to the Constitution.

“By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America”.
– Presidential candidate George W. Bush in a 2000 campaign speech on Latin America in Miami.

As someone who studies our intentional lack of border security and the resulting terror threat and illegal immigration crisis in the new America of the Bush administration, the most common question I hear after people begin to suspect that the president of the United States has no intention of securing American borders – Sept. 11, 2001, be damned – is natural enough: “Why?”

Why would the president – and a large part of Congress – refuse do everything possible to stop what a 2006 House Committee on Homeland Security report estimated to be somewhere between four and ten million illegal and uninspected border crossings in 2005 alone?

Why is there no effective and enforced removal program in place to ensure that visa holders leave the country when their visas expire? Visa overstays represent more than 40 percent of the more than 20 million illegal aliens in the same nation in which the president issued the call for us to “be vigilant” in November 2001.

The partial answer to the “why?” question is that the president is kneeling before the American business lobby, which is unwavering in its demand for continued access to the taxpayer subsidized illegal labor from Mexico. Others in elected power view the uncaught undocumented border crossers as willing future constituents – and the corporate funded, increasingly militant far-left ethnic lobby howls “racism” in a calculated and successful offensive defense of the uninterrupted supply of resentful victims of geography needed to expand the entitlements and political power on which it feeds.

These well-funded interest groups benefit from our virtually open borders and would profit significantly and quickly from a repeat of the path to citizenship granted to illegal aliens in 1986. They would all suffer from a return to a nation governed by the rule of law defined by well-defended borders and a common language.

It is past time that the readers of this space begin to hear about the rest of the answer: A larger plan and goal to create an EU-like North American Union by “integrating” the economies and the infrastructures of the United States, Canada, and that paradise to our south whose most notable exports are drugs and people – Mexico. A borderless continental super-state devoted to the lowest possible wages and maximized profits through the free flow of goods, services and people. Target date? 2010.

Essential actions for implementation? Amnesty – again – and the melding of the Mexican and American Social Security systems.

It is easy to imagine the looks of skepticism on the faces of the readers hearing this for the first time. It seems that the blueprint for the “integration of North America” detailed in the 2005 Council on Foreign Relations report “Building a North American Community,” promulgated in countless think tanks and taught and promoted in many universities – including Emory – has failed to qualify as news to the huge majority of the mainstream media.

*A coming Mexican customs office in Kansas City?

* Predictions from financial analysts that the struggling dollar could be replaced with the “Amero” as a common continental currency?

* A proposed Permanent Tribunal on Trade and Investment to lay the groundwork for North American business law – and a March 2005 announcement of a trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership? No news here?

Far too many reporters, editors and radio talk show hosts either haven’t done their homework or are willing to meekly sidestep the terrible truth in fear of being labeled “conspiracy nuts” are complicit in the “un-reporting” of what most Americans would regard as the story of the century.

You’ll read more on this fantastic scheme here in the future, but for now, I think U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-East Cobb) has reflected the opinion of most Americans on this whole enchilada in his statement to this column on the possibility of a North American Union:

“The United States for over 220 years has enjoyed the freedoms and responsibilities of an independent nation. We have served as a beacon to the world of the glories of a democratic republic. To allow our country to participate in a rumored ‘North American Union’ would take away our sovereignty and place an undue burden on the citizens of America.

“It would be a terrible mistake for the U.S. government to engage in any proposal that would diminish our independence or lessen our strength. I wholeheartedly oppose any such effort.”

Thank you, Senator Isakson. What do you think, dear reader?

letters@mdjonline.com

King is president of the Dustin Inman Society, a Marietta-based coalition dedicated to educating the public on the consequences of illegal immigration. On the Web: www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org.

February 14, 2007

NFL refuses to run a recruitment ad for the U.S. Border Patrol

Posted by D.A. King at 2:25 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

NFL rejects Border Patrol ad
By Stephen Dinan and Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 14, 2007

The National Football League refused to run a recruitment ad for the U.S. Border Patrol in last week’s Super Bowl program, saying it was “controversial” because it mentioned duties such as fighting terrorism and stopping drugs and illegal aliens at the border.

Note from D.A – see a list of Border Patrol Agents who have given their lives to secure American borders here.

“The ad that the department submitted was specific to Border Patrol, and it mentioned terrorism. We were not comfortable with that,” said Greg Aiello, a spokesman for the NFL. “The borders, the immigration debate is a very controversial issue, and we were sensitive to any perception we were injecting ourselves into that.”

Read the rest from the Washington Times here.

Good-bye Charlie Norwood

Posted by D.A. King at 7:45 am - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

From the House Website

U.S. Representative Charlie Norwood, DDS
1941-2007
(Augusta, GA) – One of Georgia’s most beloved Members of Congress, long-time patient’s and individual rights champion, dentist, Vietnam veteran, and small businessman Charles Whitlow Norwood, Jr. (R-GA), 65, died today at his home in Augusta due to complications from his eight-year battle with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

Norwood underwent a single lung transplant at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia on October 5, 2004, in response to continued lung deterioration from IPF, which was first diagnosed in 1998.

He was successfully treated for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in November 2005. Cancer development is a frequent side effect of immune-suppression drugs taken by lung-transplant patients. His latest challenge began shortly after the November 2006 elections when metastatic NSCLC was discovered in his liver.

Congressman Norwood is survived by his wife Gloria, sons Charles and Carlton Norwood, and four grandchildren, all of Augusta.

Norwood, a 7-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-2007, served most of east Georgia at some point during his congressional career due to redistricting in 1996, 2002, and 2006, representing counties extending from the North Carolina border in the North Georgia mountains, to the Macon and Dublin area in middle Georgia, and halfway to Savannah in south Georgia. He won re-election every year since 1998 by landslide margins, and was elected to the 110th Congress in November by a 68% margin. His 10th District seat will be filled in a special election to be scheduled by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue.

Norwood achieved national recognition after introducing the first comprehensive managed health care reform legislation to Congress in 1995, which subsequently passed the House of Representatives in both 1999 and 2001. Norwood’s Patient’s Bill of Rights legislation became a key issue in the 2000 Presidential election, and will likely be revived in the 110th Congress.

Norwood was instrumental in health care reform for military retirees and veterans as well as patients-at-large. The former Army dentist was co-author of the Keep Our Promises to Military Retirees Act in 1999, which provided fully funded health care for life for the nation’s military retirees. The majority of the bill was enacted as part of the Defense Authorization Act of 2000.

In addition to his long-time national advocacy for patients, Norwood succeeded in passing reforms across a broad range of public policy areas, spanning education, private property rights, telecommunications, and environmental regulations.

He reformed the nation’s special education system by authoring the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Discipline Reform Amendment in 1999, which passed the House of Representatives and became law in 2003 as part of the Improving Education Results for Children with Disabilities Act, protecting disabled students and their teachers from violence in the classroom.

Norwood is further recognized as the father of the nation’s current Class A broadcast television service, by authoring and passing into law the Community Broadcasting Protection Act in 1998.

In federal issues with direct local economic impact, Norwood played the pivotal role in reforming U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dealings with local government and private citizens, through federal approval for restoration of the New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam, and reform of the Corps’ Lake Management Plan regulation of private property owner rights. In addition, Norwood founded the Savannah River Water Quality Initiative in 1996, which succeeded in restoring the trout stocking demonstration project in the Savannah River rapids above Augusta in 1998.

Representative Norwood provided the driving legislative pressure in preserving federal funding and missions of the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps Headquarters and Eisenhower Army Regional Medical Center at Fort Gordon, and the U.S. Department of Energy Savannah River Site project, staving off attempts to downsize or close both facilities during federal funding cutbacks throughout his congressional career.

In Congressional oversight action, Norwood played a key role in the 1996-1998 Teamster’s investigation, the 1998-2002 investigations of theft and fraud at the U.S. Department of Education, and the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton in 1998.

Norwood was a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee throughout his congressional career. In the current 110th Congress he served on the Subcommittees on Health and Oversight and Investigations. He was Vice Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health from 2001-2004, and a member of the Energy and Power Subcommittee from 1995-2000.

Norwood also served on the Education and Workforce Committee from 1995-2006, where he was Chairman of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections from 2001-2006, and Vice-Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee from 1997-2000.

He was also a member of the Rural Health Care Caucus, the Army Caucus, and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, and served on the Speaker’s Task Force on Tritium Production in the 104th Congress and the Speaker’s Working Group on Health Care Reform in the 105th Congress.

Dr. Norwood was born in Valdosta, Georgia, July 27, 1941, the son of the late Charles Whitlow Norwood, Sr. and Lola Parham Norwood. He attended Lowndes County Public Schools through the first year of high school at Valdosta High, and graduated from Baylor Military High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1959. Norwood was a football standout throughout high school, played under legendary Valdosta High Coach Wright Bazemore, and was the defensive nemesis of later-NFL Minnesota Vikings quarterback great Fran Tarkenton during the 1958 battle between Valdosta and Athens High, and again in a 1959 Baylor-Athens High match-up.

Norwood received a bachelor’s degree from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro in 1964, and a Doctorate in Dental Surgery from Georgetown University Dental School in Washington, D.C., in 1967, where he was elected President of the Dental School Student Body in his senior year. He married the former Gloria Wilkinson of Valdosta in 1962 while attending Georgia Southern.

After dental school, he volunteered for the U.S. Army and served as a Captain in the Dental Corps from 1967–69, beginning with an assignment to the U.S. Army Dental Corps at Sandia Army Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1968 he was transferred to the Medical Battalion of the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam, and served a combat tour at Quin Yon, An Khe, and LZ English at Bon Son.

During his tour, he participated in experimental military dental practices that became standard procedure for the armed forces after the war. He was one of the first participants in the Army outreach program that delivered dentists to forward firebases in lieu of transferring patients to rear treatment areas. Norwood also provided some of the first field-based dental treatment of military guard dogs, and assisted in non-dental trauma care in Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH units). In recognition of his service under combat conditions, he was awarded the Combat Medical Badge and two Bronze Stars. After Vietnam, he was assigned to the Dental Corps at Fort Gordon, Georgia, where he served until his discharge in 1969. Norwood was awarded the Association of the United States Army Cocklin Award in 1998, and was inducted into the Association’s Audie Murphy Society in 1999. He remained a lifelong member of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Military Order of the World Wars.

Dr. Norwood began private practice dentistry in Augusta immediately after his discharge. During his dental career, he served as President of both the Georgia Dental Association and the Eastern District Dental Society, was a Delegate to the American Dental Association, and was founder of the Augusta Dental Disaster Society. He was a member of the American Dental Association, the Georgia Academy of Dental Society, the Augusta Dental Society, was an Honorable Fellow of the Georgia Dental Association, and a Fellow of both the International College of Dentistry and the American College of Dentistry Sciences.

Norwood received the American Psychological Association’s Outstanding Leadership Award in 1996 and the Association’s Man of the Year Award in 1998; the American Medical Association’s Nathan Davis Award for 1999; and the Guardian of Medicare Award of the United States Seniors Association in 1996, for his leadership efforts in health care reform.

In addition to his dental practice, Norwood also founded Northwoods Nursery in Evans, providing trees and shrubs to wholesale outlets throughout the Central Savannah River Area, and Augusta Dental Laboratory, which manufactured dental devices for patients.

He became a stalwart supporter of small business and property rights interests in Congress, receiving the 1995 Fighting Frosh award of the United States Business and Industrial Council; the Guardian of Senior’s Rights Award of the 60 Plus Association, the Friend of the Family Award of the Christian Coalition, the Friend of the Taxpayer Award of Americans for Tax Reform, the Guardian of Small Business Award of the National Federation of Independent Business, the Spirit of Enterprise Award of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Thomas Jefferson Award of the U.S. Food Service Council, the Champion of Property Rights Award of the League of Private Property Owners, the Taxpayer’s Hero Award of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, and the Taxpayer’s Friend Award of National Taxpayers Union.

Dr. Norwood and his wife Gloria were long-time members of and taught Adult Sunday School at Trinity-on-the-Hill United Methodist Church in Augusta. He was also a past Board Member of the Augusta Opera Society, and a member of the Augusta Symphony Guild.

A schedule of public services will be announced by the Congressional District Office as soon as events are finalized. ( Note from D.A. – The funeral is Thursday at 2:00 PM in Augusta)

February 13, 2007

Cobb County Georgia Sheriff Neal Warren Reaches Agreement With Feds on 287 g…THANK YOU SHERIFF WARREN!

Posted by D.A. King at 10:06 pm - Email the author   Print This Post Print This Post  

The Cobb County Sheriff’s Officeis the first law enforcment agency in Georgia to get 287 g authority.

I hope that you will ask why your Sheriff does not have 287 g authority…soon.

Note from D.A. – Neal Warren is a great American and a terrific sheriff.

From the Marietta Daily Journal:
Cobb to begin checks for illegals in jail

By Amanda Casciaro
Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer

MARIETTA – Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren signed an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Monday to begin identification of illegal immigrants who enter Cobb County Jail.

The pact also provides special training to deputies to allow them to begin deportation of illegal immigrants.

Cobb’s approval of the program makes it the first in the state to gain access to federal immigration data and one of only seven governments nationwide to garner federal approval.

Cobb commissioners approved a resolution Oct. 24 that gave Warren approval to enter the program – a rarely used section of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act.

“Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, but when illegal immigrants come into our community and commit crimes, it becomes a local enforcement issue and we will not hesitate to use all of the tools at our disposal to ensure the safety of our citizens and the enforcement of our laws,” Warren said in a written statement Monday.

Pursuant to the agreement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will train select sheriff’s deputies to determine whether foreign nationals entering custody are in the United States legally.

By way of a federal ICE database that lists names of those thought to be in the country illegally and those here lawfully on work Visas, sheriff’s deputies will initiate paperwork to begin deportation under the watchful eye of an ICE agent.

Before illegal immigrants can be deported, however, they must complete sentences that stem from any local charges and appear in federal immigration court in Atlanta.

The program will allow Cobb resources to be applied in identification of illegal immigrants in the face of slow or unresponsive federal staffing.

“If someone is here illegally and commits a crime, whether a misdemeanor or felony, they need to serve their sentence and be deported,” Warren said. “This program will be a useful tool in accomplishing that goal.”

The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Department in Charlotte, N.C., began using the database in April, and has seen marked results in regard to residents beginning deportation proceedings, department spokeswoman Julia Rusha said.

“Before the agreement was passed, if someone came into the jail on an aggravated felony or violent crime, we would send an electronic message to ICE in Vermont and say we’ve got this person and here are their fingerprints,” Ms. Rusha said. “We may hear back from them; we may not. I may be an hour; it may be weeks. Now, since we have direct access to their database, we can check it ourselves in a matter of seconds.”

According to Warren, the Cobb Sheriff’s Department is in the process of setting up a meeting with the special agent in charge of the ICE Atlanta field office to determine when to begin training for deputies and how many will receive database access.

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