Photo: GunsToCarry

We have been asking questions on this for more than year. It looks like having a work permit may be even more of a jackpot bonus to illegal aliens than many people realize. Here is a Q/A from the Cobb County Probate Court office.

Illegal aliens with DACA are illegals aliens – no legal status, no lawful presence, not admissible and are removable, so says the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Here.

Directly from a Georgia Probate Judge;

“Because Georgia has incorporated the federal prohibitors into its WCL statute in order to allow a WCL holder to skip an instant background check to purchase a firearm, we have to comply with the federal requirements that we perform a NICS check on each applicant as well as an IAQ (immigration inquiry) on each person applying who is not a U.S. citizen.  These checks are performed through a terminal in our office which accesses that information – which has been authorized by the GBI.

I’m not computer-minded enough to tell you the specifics of how that information is obtained except we type in certain descriptive information into the software provided to us, including certain identifying numbers created through ICE on immigrants, to get the stuff we need to determine eligibility.

My Question to a former senior ICE Agent:

“What is the final report to the probate court from (ICE)/LESC on immigration status for a DACA recipient (who obviously has an EAD) and a hunting permit, DL/ID card. Will the DACA recipient who applies for WCL be approved by the reporting fed agency on lawful presence/legal status/immigration status?

FYI: Here is a write up of last year’s appellate court decision on DACA lawful presence.

Thanks,****”

      Response: 

“…attorney gave me quite a lengthy and comprehensive response. In a nutshell, aliens with DACA are in kind of a grey area. Some circuits have determined specifically that DACA does not confer lawful status for the purposes of 922(g)(5), while others have disagreed with that stance. The matter has not been litigated in the 11th circuit though, so our attorney couldn’t cite any precedent in GA related to the matter.

In the end, the matter of qualifying for a concealed carry permit is a state issue, so our policy would not govern their decision. But it would be our position that an alien with DACA is not lawfully present in the US for the purposes of 922(g)(5) and should not possess any firearm.

However, I don’t think Cobb is looking that far into it and is only concerned with whether or not the alien meets the criteria for the permit itself – not whether the alien should possess a firearm in the first place.”

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How Do I Apply for a Weapons Carry License (WCL)? Here, from georgia.gov .

Here is Georgia law on firearms eligibility.