“Woodall said it’s in the best interests of any multi-state business to have a single national law.”

HERE

Car dealers discover law of diminishing returns: Sellers in Hispanic-oriented neighborhoods suffer because Georgia requires an in-state license to register a vehicle.

Written by Mary Lou Pickel
Posted on 2008-06-14

By Mary Lou Pickel
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 06/14/08

The used car sales manager at Gwinnett Place Ford reads the sign-in list of walk-in customers.

“Mr. and Mrs. Lopez … Mr. Rodriguez … Mr. Piero and Miss Arias,” says Mike Wright.

It kills him that he can’t sell more cars to Hispanic customers. All were good prospects, but Wright could only sell to one, who had proper papers.

Dealers in areas with a high percentage of Hispanic customers say business took a dive last year. Many say the key factor was a state law that requires car owners to have a Georgia driver’s license to register a vehicle. Immigrants without proper visas can’t get a Georgia license. That means they can’t get a tag. With no tag, what’s the use of a car?

Car sales have taken a downward spiral in the past months for many reasons —- high gas prices, the housing slowdown and a sluggish economy.

Dealers say all of these things weigh in, but the coup de grace is the state’s tag law, which has taken a big bite out of their bottom line.

“They come in every single day, but we tell them, ‘Folks, without a Social Security number or a driver’s license, we can’t do anything for you,’ ” Wright said.

Pravin Patel, a sales manager at Rick Hendrick Chevrolet in Duluth, agrees.

“The economy hurts it, but the law makes it worse,” he said.

The law’s sponsor, Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), said his goal was public safety, not immigration control. The law, known as Senate Bill 38, took effect July 1, 2007.

Rogers says his bill “has nothing to do with the sale of a vehicle.”

“We could allow 12-year-olds to drive and that would increase car sales, but it’s not good public policy,” he said.

Rogers was also the architect of Senate Bill 529, a larger bill that cracks down on illegal immigrants. It requires jailers to investigate the legal status of those booked on felony or DUI charges. It tightens screening for welfare benefits, directs universities to deny in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, requires contractors on public jobs to double-check legal status of new hires, and punishes employers who aren’t certain their subcontractors are here legally.

Rogers says the purpose of his car tag law is to assure that anyone who drives on Georgia’s roads knows the rules of the road.

The law has had an effect on auto dealers, though.

Many dealers in Gwinnett County and along Buford Highway in DeKalb County have built up a substantial business catering to nearby Hispanic residents who have licenses from other states or foreign countries.

Many offer their own financing to customers rather than going through a bank. They are known as “buy here, pay here” lots.

The downturn has rippled to auto-related businesses, too.

David Park, owner of Car Zone on Buford Highway in Doraville, says he’s thinking of replacing the Spanish signs on his repair shop with Vietnamese signs. Many Vietnamese shop along Buford Highway, and most are here legally as refugees from their war-torn country. The state’s crackdown on illegal immigrants has affected his business “big time,” he said.

Boards cover the windows of another mechanic shop down the street. A Buford Highway car stereo store popular with Mexican customers closed. Its space is for lease.

“The Hispanics don’t come in anymore. There are none around,” Sugar Hill auto lot owner J.W. Wimpey said.

“It’s hurt our business tremendous,” said Wimpey, who has run J.W. Truck Sales for 12 years. He says business is down 30 percent to 40 percent.

Gwinnett Place Ford, in Duluth, estimates it has lost half of its Hispanic customers, at a cost of 40 to 45 car deals per month. Those sales were mostly trucks and SUVs, which are high-profit for the dealership. At one time, 30 percent of the dealership’s used car buyers were Hispanic. Now that figure is 10 percent to 15 percent, Wright said.

“I understand the law,” Wright said. “But for Lord knows how many years, they let it go,” he said of clamping down on those without papers.

“It’s really bad in general for dealers,” said Eduardo Erazo, manager of On the Road Again Auto Sales in Doraville. “It’s really slow. We went down 50 percent on Hispanic sales. Believe me, that’s too much.”

Other dealerships that have not relied on Hispanic customers say they have not been affected as much.

“Ninety percent of our cars were financed through a bank. We weren’t serving those folks anyway,” said Bill Huseby, general manager of Mall of Georgia Ford in Buford. “The overall economy has got us down.”

Park, the auto repair operator, says Buford Highway used to be a mix of Asians and Hispanics, but it slowly changed to a majority Hispanic clientele five years ago.

Norcross is estimated at 52 percent Hispanic, according to Claritas, a marketing information resources company. Buford Highway runs through Doraville and Chamblee. Both cities are majority Hispanic —- 57 percent and 65 percent, respectively, according to Claritas estimates.

Park has seen a 35 percent decrease in his gross income in the past year. “We’re extremely tight. We’re a couple of months behind on the rent,” he said.

Illegal immigration is a difficult issue, he said.

Park is a Korean immigrant and United States citizen, but he doesn’t have sympathy for those who are here illegally.

“It’s wrong. They came here wrong,” he said.

The solution isn’t easy.

“You can’t just kick them out of the country,” he said.

Wimpey says his former Hispanic customers have gone to Texas, Florida and North Carolina. “They’re going to other places where they can do business,” he said.

He blames the politicians for wrongheaded laws.

“They screwed up the market,” Wimpey said. “I don’t know what they were thinking.”

HERE

Note from D.A. – maybe they were trying to save American lives on our highways?

Important news and a request from Billy Inman:
Billy has organized a vigil this evening to remember the death of his and Kathy’s only son, Dustin. Dustin was killed in a car wreck Father’s Day weekend, 2000 when an illegal alien ran into the back of the Inman family car. More information here.
The Inman family has asked that all who are able to honor Dustin’s memory gather tonight at 7:00PM at Rolling Hills Cemetery, 4355 Highway 92, ( Hwy 92& Woodstock Rd) Acworth Georgia.

Dustin’s mom, Kathy sustained massive spinal injuries in the wreck that killed her son, and I understand that her condition is worsening and she is not doing well these days. I hope that many of you can join the Inman’s for a short event this evening.

I hope to see you there.
dak

“But King said the notion that Americans no longer are willing to perform certain jobs is a myth being perpetrated by the open-borders lobby.
“It’s not that they don’t want a job,” he said. “They have this funny proclivity for asking for a living wage in their own country.”

Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia immigration law expanding to more employers

Beset by congressional indecision over illegal immigration on one side and voters clamoring for action on the other, Georgia lawmakers stepped out on their own in 2006 and passed a major reform bill. Two years later, the only thing all sides of the debate over Georgia’s unilateral crackdown agree on is they don’t like how the law is playing out…

HERE

I am very proud that an edited version of this appeared on Dick Pettys’ Insider Advantage Georgia today – and thank Mr. Pettys for the space. Insider Advantage is a subscription Website.

——————-
“There ought’a be a law”. Most of us have muttered that all-too familiar phrase a few times in our lives.

On the topic of illegal immigration, illegal employment and illegal access to public benefits, in twenty-first century Georgia, we need to add “and it should be enforced”.

On those issues, there is a Georgia law.

In April, 2006 state Senator Chip Rogers (R- Woodstock) was successful in getting his Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act (SB 529) signed into law. Those involved in lobbying for the badly needed regulation were acutely aware of the cynicism of many citizens who remarked that “even if it passes, it won’t be enforced”.

Few involved in fighting for the bill could have guessed at the time that not only would they be partially correct, but that it would be many of the elected officials in Georgia’s local governments who would be among the violators – and that the media would ignore the issue.

Essentially, Rogers’ law, which went into effect July 1, 2007, is an effort to require compliance with long standing federal immigration and employment law here in Georgia by using available federal tools.

Section 2 of SB 529 stipulates that all public employers – the state of Georgia itself, municipalities and county governments and in stages, their contractors – must use the no-cost federal employment verification data-base now called E-Verify to validate the work eligibility of all newly hired employees.

Voters who will decide in November who will operate their local governments should be very interested to learn that of the 500-plus cities and towns and 159 counties in our state, according to an April 23rd Department of Homeland Security list of E-Verify users in Georgia, many counties have not yet obtained authority from the feds to use E-Verify.

At less than 50%, the number of municipalities on the list E-Verify is even more dismal.

One must wonder how many illegal aliens have been hired by the governments that are in violation of the state law that says we must obey the federal law.

In an effort to protect the limited amount of taxpayer funds on hand for providing public benefits, Senator Rogers designed section 9 of the law to require verification of eligibility of all applicants for those benefits. Again, by using a federal tool. The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program reports on the immigration status of applicants names submitted for verification.

The goal here was to be sure that we are not dispensing public dollars to people with no legal right to be in the U.S. while legal residents and Americans are on waiting lists.

It is a masterful plan – but like all laws, meaningless unless enthusiastically enforced.

According to DHS, as of the end of April – nearly a year after Rogers’ law went into effect – a total of 9 (nine!) Georgia entities have either applied for or are authorized to use the very efficient SAVE system.

One must also wonder about the efficiency of the Association of County Commissioners (ACCG) whose Website describes its primary charge as:” to ensure that the counties can provide the necessary leadership, services and programs to meet the health, safety and welfare needs of their citizens” and the Georgia Municipal Authority – (GMA – “Advocacy, Service, Innovation”) in educating their members on compliance.

This long time American listened in amazement not once, but twice, during the last General Assembly session while a lobbyist for the GMA smugly explained to other lobbyists and a legislator that “most municipalities are not required to use the SAVE program”.

Georgia county commissions and most – if not all – Georgia cities regulate business licenses in their communities. Apparently the GMA lobbyist is among the many involved in government and the media who are not aware that federal law is clear on defining public benefits. Those benefits include ”any professional or commercial license provided by an agency of a State or local government”.

Simply put, while U.S. Border Patrol Agents risk their lives to secure American borders, counties and municipalities in Georgia are encouraging and rewarding the illegal border crossers who escape apprehension by granting them business licenses while ignoring federal law, state law and the tool designed to prevent exactly that scenario.

Perhaps to many in the media all of this sounds a bit “wonkish” and represents, as one local TV news producer reportedly remarked, “just another illegal immigration story”.

We can only imagine the front page headlines and extended news reports if the same local governments were to ignore the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision that requires public funding of the education of illegal alien children or were to defy the 1986 federal law that says American taxpayers must foot the bill for hospitals to provide care to anyone needing emergency treatment regardless of ability to pay, citizenship… or immigration status.

The old adage is true: All politics is local. Local politicians who ignore the law will have some explaining to do if their constituents get even a basic education on this one.

Isn’t that the media’s job?

King is president of the Cobb-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. The Dustin Inman Society uses the E-Verify system. On the Web: www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org

MEDIA RELEASE 16 June 2008

Dustin Inman Society to expose failure of local governments in Georgia to comply with the 2006 Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act. (SB 529)

The Dustin Inman Society

www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org

3595 Canton Rd. A-9/337

Marietta, Ga. 30066

Contact D.A. King DA (AT) TheDustinInmanSocisty.org

On the eighth anniversary of the death of 16 year-old Dustin Inman, D.A. King, president of the Dustin Inman Society – named for the Woodstock youth who lost his life to illegal immigration – announces a push to make voters aware of many Georgia municipal and county government’s violation of state law aimed at the crimes of illegal immigration, illegal employment and illegally accessing public benefits.

Signed into law in April 2006 and implemented July 1, 2007, section two of the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act requires all public employers to use the no-cost federal data base “E-Verify” to determine work eligibility of newly hired employees.

Section nine of the law requires all government agencies in Georgia to verify the eligibility of all applicants for public benefits using the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.

“According to end – of – April DHS records, estimates are that less than half of Georgia’s 500 plus municipal governments are using the E-Verify system and about 60 of Georgia’s 159 counties are missing from the list of users.” King reports. “Even more alarming in these difficult economic times, the DHS list shows only a total of 9 (nine) SAVE users.”

“Public benefits are clearly defined in federal law” noted King. “Those benefits include any professional or commercial license provided by an agency of a State or local government. While brave Border Patrol Agents are risking – and losing – their lives to stop illegal immigration, we watch as local governments in Georgia enable illegal aliens by providing business licenses and occupational tax certificates to those who escape apprehension.”

Voters in local elections deserve to fully understand the consequences of their elected official’s lack of compliance with the law” King said. “Are local governments somehow above the law?”

In July, King will begin a summer- long speaking tour of Georgia to educate voters on the issue.

Members of the media with an interest in reporting on the topic can refer to the text of the Georgia law here and the federal law (8USC 1621) defining public benefits here. The SAVE program here .

Named for one of the thousands of Americans who have paid the ultimate price for America’s unsecured borders and the resulting illegal immigration crisis, the Dustin Inman Society is a Georgia-based, non-partisan coalition of Americans opposed to illegal immigration and employment.

———
Public benefits as defined in 8 USC 1621:

(c) “State or local public benefit” defined
(1) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3), for purposes of this subchapter the term “State or local public benefit” means—
(A) 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; and (B) any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for which payments or assistance are provided to an individual, household, or family eligibility unit by an agency of a State or local government or by appropriated funds of a State or local government.

Wichita (Kansas) Eagle

Illegal alien case puts hospital in a bind

A Wichita hospital is in a quandary — trying to find long-term care for a charity case involving a patient who is an illegal [alien]. — One local health provider says problems such as this could become more common because of the growing number of illegal [aliens] in Kansas.

HERE

Click HERE ( scroll down to bottom of piece) to see the comments. I think this may have set a record for the number of comments posted on any MDJ column I can remember.

Marietta Daily Journal

Sylvia Montoya: Trip home highlights changes brought by illegal immigration
Published: 06/11/2008

Two weekends ago I was excited about attending my nephew’s high school graduation in my hometown of El Paso, Texas, just across the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico.

Things have changed a lot.

On my way to my sister’s house from the airport, my nephew and I talked about his years at Cathedral High School. Isaac had an impressive athletic record, winning several cross-country awards in local, regional and state competitions. However, during his senior year he had lost interest in track and in his academic career. He cited the school’s increased leniency in accepting students from across the border. Standards had eroded, the entire student body was penalized due to discipline issues and it was no longer the educational haven he had entered as a freshman. The decision to allow students from Juarez had changed the standards and academic pride of the school, explained my nephew sadly.

But he would graduate and would no longer have to face the daily issues of arrogance and entitlement exhibited by students from Mexico.

Preparing for the graduation ceremony and dinner, my sister and I had to do some shopping. Our first stop was the new outlet mall recently built on the west side of El Paso. In our shopping, it was clear that the customer sales reps preferred to provide assistance in Spanish. From Sam’s Club to Dillards to IHOP, Spanish signage was prominent and Spanish was spoken by workers and customers. I was in another country.

English is no longer the primary spoken or preferred language in El Paso, Texas.

At the graduation ceremony for the class of 2008, one of the opening announcements was that specific parts of the ceremony would be in Spanish only.

The Boy Scouts paraded in with the flag. Guests were asked to stand. My family and I placed our hands over our heart to recite the Pledge to the Flag, as we had done so many times during our school years. However, many people in front and all around us refused to stand and continued to talk and conducted themselves with complete disrespect for the flag and the Pledge that only American citizens understand and appreciate. It was then that I understood my nephew’s sadness regarding the erosion of his rights as a citizen when the overwhelming majority of his classmates were not U.S. citizens.

Heavy media coverage of vicious slayings in Juarez filled news reports in the two days leading up to my nephew’s graduation. At least 25 people had been found dead during the previous weekend. Residents on both sides of the border were asked to stay at home. More than 33 people had been killed the previous week by organized criminal elements linked to warring drug cartels in Juarez. There are now approximately 2,500 soldiers attempting to control violence in Juarez.

We were asked not to cross the border. We were not able to attend my nephew’s graduation dinner, traditionally held at a well-known restaurant in Juarez, due to the violence.

My nephew had been cheated out of one of life’s most memorable rights of passage. He was relieved as the evening came to a close. He would no longer have to experience the lack of respect for long-standing American educational practices and the total disrespect for our patriotic traditions.

As I flew back to Georgia I could not help thinking that El Paso was very different 25 years ago. I had an opportunity to compare then and now. I could see up close what happens to an American city with an open border and what the new posture of disregard and disrespect will spawn throughout our communities and schools.

I had seen what happens when little is being done to preserve basic American traditions, when we turn the other way and allow our rights to be trampled for the sake of “cheap” labor and the “rights” of immigrants over traditional American values. It is clear to me now these “immigrants” are here to take, but give nothing back to the American way of life.

Silvia Montoya operates a retail mail/shipping store with her husband in Marietta.

Dave Gibson — American Chronicle

US roads will remain killing fields until the borders are secured

A few days ago, a six year-old girl was hit and killed while crossing the street in a suburb of Milwaukee. The man behind the wheel?…A previously-deported illegal alien. — As little Mackenzie Maddox and her mother crossed the street at S. 84th St. and W. Cleveland Ave. in West Allis, WI, the car driven by Jose Rodriguez came speeding through the intersection…

The rest of the sad truth HERE.

Renew America
May 22, 2006

Are black Americans being blackmailed to support illegal aliens’ false civil rights claims?

On May 1st, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens took to American streets to essentially blackmail America into supporting their alleged “civil rights” which sent up at least a half dozen red flags in the black community. I’m quite certain that thousands of black mothers and fathers — who, by the way, are here in this country legally — who are struggling to obtain a decent education, or affordable housing, or quality health care or a job to support their family just had to wonder why 12 to 20 million illegal aliens think they should suddenly jump ahead of them in hijacking their rights as citizens to the American Dream.

What exactly is a “civil right”? What must one have been deprived of, and under what conditions are these civil rights to be earned or obtained? There is a marked difference between the blood shed, sacrifice made and the entitlements earned by the black civil rights experience of the 19th and 20th century struggles and the current claims of millions of illegal aliens. The civil rights which each black family earned generation by generation, struggling as citizens under threat of lynching, under threat of fire bombings, under threat of murder… but as citizens is being compared to illegal aliens who want “civil rights” that are not only not earned but they aren’t warranted without citizenship!

Here we go again…

This isn’t the first time some folks who were not brought against their will and without the “open and obvious” ability to group them by their skin color to systematically deny their rights tried to pin its “civil rights” entitlement to the coattails of the black struggle for civil rights in the hope that leaders like Rev. Jesse Jackson and millions of black Americans would fall for the rouse. Recently it was gay Americans who claimed several years ago that their struggle was the same as Americans of African decent. It didn’t work.

Even Rev. Jesse Jackson had to admit to no real connection to the threadbare attempt to compares the gay experience to the black struggle as if by some miraculous transformation they or any other group who had not gone through the same valiant struggles should somehow be awarded a “Civil Rights Badge of Constitutional Entitlement” earned and fought for by generations of African Americans since and even before the Civil War.

Now comes another group attempting to attach its claims to black civil rights struggles. What is disturbing is that the illegal alien agenda is not a civil rights agenda. The illegal alien agenda attempts to equate evading our border patrols to deserving a civil rights badge of martyrdom. Now 12 to 20 million illegal aliens who for 25 years have simply walked across, swam across, or were driven under cover of darkness across our nation’s border feel they have endured the same comparable experience to the countless harrowing “Underground Railroad” trips made by Harriett Tubman or Sojourner Truth through slave states to convey slaves to freedom.

Of course there is no logical comparison, but there are some black leaders who attempt to make a connection and in their effort are failing black people when they cheapen their worth. This open support and advocacy for illegal alien rallies which demand more and more American resources, more boycotts, more walkouts… at the expense of far too many black Americans who struggle daily for jobs, decent education and housing is wrong… wrong… wrong!

Please read the rest HERE