Image: Pew Research Center

Marietta Daily Journal
Nov 3, 2019

Misconceptions about IMAGE

DEAR EDITOR:

The MDJ recently ran a story on Commissioner Birrell’s intent to pass an ordinance to require Cobb’s contractors to apply to become IMAGE certified. Including the headline (“Birrell renews debate on making county contractors screen job applicants for immigration status”), much of the “news” was inaccurate in explaining IMAGE.

While it is true that IMAGE certification requires use of the no-cost E-Verify system to help insure a legal workforce, neither IMAGE or E-verify “screens job applicants.” E-Verify is used to verify the work eligibility of newly hired employees. Repeat, it is not a job-applicant-screening device. Neither is IMAGE.

Initiated in 2006, through audits, the IMAGE program detects prior use of stolen or fake ID used to by job applicants to get hired. Identity theft is a horrible and fast-growing crime that has long-lasting effects on the victim. The identity thief may also use your information to fraudulently apply for credit, file taxes or get medical services. These criminal acts can damage your credit status, and cost you time and money to restore your good name.

Cobb County directly employs a lot of people and because it is an employer, in 2012 the county saw fit to use the IMAGE certification process to be sure that our taxes aren’t being used to pay illegal alien workers who had stolen our ID. Birrell and Gambrill’s proposed ordinance is the same one that Commissioner Bob Ott put forward seven years ago as a logical and commonsense expansion of that concept.

Most Cobb County voters, including here at our house where my wife is an immigrant, don’t want to pay “undocumented” workers through the contractors that the county hires.

It is time to tell the contractors who are paid with the same tax dollars to begin the IMAGE certification process. Commissioner Bob Ott worked hard to see passage of this contractor ordinance in 2012, but lost the fight to the power of the donor-class special interests who will fight hard again to stop any audit of their past hiring practices.

Ott originally proposed the IMAGE idea to the board. He should be thanked and with his vote along with Gambrill and Birrell, this important ordinance will become ground-breaking reality. We hope the reporters and editors at the MDJ will be more careful in accuracy on IMAGE. Maybe ask immigration expert D.A. King, who wrote the 2012 proposal that should have passed.

John Litland

Marietta

Here.

Photo: Tortilla Industry Association

Marietta Daily Journal
November 2, 2019

IMAGE certification is right way for Cobb

DEAR EDITOR:

Thank goodness the IMAGE certification for Cobb contractors and vendors has finally come back up! Just in time for the 2020 election, we will be able to see everyone pick a side, especially the commissioners.

Way back in 2012, Commissioner Bob Ott brought the IMAGE idea forward for the county and it was approved unanimously. When the county became “IMAGE certified,” it meant the county’s hiring and employment records had been reviewed to be sure they were in line with the law. It also meant that the stolen ID had not been used by employees to get a job with the county. It meant that our tax dollars were not being paid to illegal labor working for the county.

As Commissioner Ott pointed out then, the next logical step is to have the contractors and the various vendors that get paid with our tax money to use the same system to accomplish the same goals. We certainly don’t want to see our taxes paid to contractors who use illegal labor who used stolen American ID to get hired.

We all remember the terrible scandal when it was found that undocumented workers were caught building the Cobb County Courthouse. As Commissioner Ott put it after Cobb became IMAGE certified, “When the county built the new courthouse, some issues came up … the E-Verify system didn’t catch all the loopholes. So, we had some folks that were not legal who got the jobs. The long-term goal would be requiring everyone the county does business with to be IMAGE certified.”

Ott was right and the MDJ was right to endorse the board’s IMAGE certification. We trust that we will soon see a vote on the ordinance that he and Commissioner JoAnn Birrell sponsored then to require contractors to at least apply for the same IMAGE certification idea. And we still remember scratching our heads when Commissioner Lisa Cupid told us the concept was “racist.”

Jan Barton

Marietta

Here.

Community Engagement Discussion: 287(g) Program from TV Gwinnett on Vimeo.

Gwinnett County Commissioner Marlene Fosque. Image Gwinnett County website

Gwinnett Daily Post
October 30, 2019

King’s ethics complaint against Fosque to be heard in December

A Gwinnett County ethics board will hand the county an unusual Christmas present in December: a hearing on a complaint about comments a county commissioner made about the leader of a controversial pro-immigration enforcement group.

The ethics board assembled to hear the complaint that Dustin Inman Society founder D.A. King filed against Commissioner Marlene Fosque met for the first time Wednesday. The five-member panel picked its chairman and vice-chairman, underwent ethics training and decided to schedule two hearings for December.

The first hearing will be a preliminary hearing on Dec. 9. The second, and more crucial, one will be an evidenciary hearing — where testimony will be given and evidence presented — held on Dec. 19.

The ethics complaint stems from a 287(g) forum Fosque hosted — which King participated in at the invitation of Sheriff Butch Conway — in late July, as well as critical comments the commissioner made after the fact about King’s participation.

King filed the complaint in response to the comments Fosque made at the Aug. 6 commission meeting, during which she denounced King’s participation in the forum while citing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s assessment of the Dustin Inman Society as a hate group.

Supporters of the organization and King have denounced the Southern Poverty Law Center and called its legitimacy into question over the hate group assessment.

“This individual, as noted by an anti-defamation league director, has ties to the extreme elements of the anti-immigrant movement, spewing hatred and … (intimidating) advocacy groups,” Fosque said in August.

“This man from Cobb County, he should have never been invited by Sheriff Butch Conway to participate in our local Gwinnett discussion.”

In his complaint against Fosque said she violated state laws concerning defamation by “making charges against Plaintiff’s work with his non-profit organization the Dustin Inman Society and by uttering disparaging words causing special damages” to King.

“(The) actions of the Defendant clearly demonstrate an occasion where she did not uphold the laws of the State of Georgia as required by the relevant portion of the Gwinnett Code of Ordinances,” King wrote in the complaint. Read more here.