Cobb County Court House. Image: Cobb County Sheriff.

Marietta Daily Journal
Sunday, January 6, 2019

Georgia should do more about immigration

DEAR EDITOR:

A recent national poll reveals that government and immigration are the two top issues on the minds of Americans. This should not come as a surprise to anyone paying attention, especially here in Georgia and Cobb County.

Through reading the tireless work of immigration expert D.A. King, I have seen data from DHS that Georgia has more illegal aliens than Arizona. It follows that we also have more unscrupulous employers who hire the illegals than Arizona. On his informative new website, ImmigrationPoliticsGA, I see the astonishing fact that Georgia is also home to more illegal aliens than green-card holders, and that our state illegal immigration laws are largely ignored. That is how far we have declined.

Illegal immigration is not a “federal issue.” Not many of us have forgotten the scandal involved with the illegal labor working on the Cobb courthouse construction. While the local media coverage of illegal immigration in Georgia seems to have faded to nearly zero, the issue of illegal immigration should not fade from the attention of state and county leaders, or from the MDJ opinion page.

Years ago, Cobb County joined the federal IMAGE program to help ensure that there were no illegal aliens working directly for the county. After praising the program, then-Chairman Tim Lee reversed course and killed the effort to require county contractors to use the IMAGE system of audits and best practices to ensure that taxpayer money isn’t going to pay illegal aliens who work for the vendors and contractors. County Commissioners should take up the fight to use all the tools provided to fight illegal employment of illegal workers if they want to claim to be responsible stewards of our tax dollars and our county. Contractors should be required to be IMAGE-certified just like Cobb County is and for the same reasons.

The opinion page of MDJ was once a leader in the fight against illegal immigration. We wonder what happened to change that. Illegal immigration is crime.

Bill Buckler

Kennesaw