Video from March 20, 2018 House Public Safety and Homeland Security hearing on SB452. HERE.
Start at 17:00 and go to 21:30. Nazi remark at 18:03.

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Transcript below:

Speaker 1 (Committee Chairman, Rep Alan Powell):           ” Mr. Chairman, Mr. Clark.

Mr. Clark:              I’m gonna just talk about the latest substitute real quick, just to present that.

In section one we did change a ‘shall’ back to a ‘may’, there was some concerns within the business community with international companies, the CEO or somebody might be here with a foreign driver’s license and if they were pulled over for some reason, and they didn’t have their visa on them, you know most people don’t carry that around on them on a permanent basis because they don’t want to lose it because it’s a pain to get another one.

We wanted to allow for discretion… the police officers to maintain some discretion there, so we changed it back to a ‘may’-

Senator Stone:          What line is that on?

Mr. Clark:              That would be on line 19.

So allowing for, I mean, because this isn’t Nazi Germany; we are not asking people to carry their papers around on them at all times.

We kept that as a ‘may’.

We did take out the section with Representative Petrea’s database reporting on the Department of Correction’s website, that’s been removed.

Also, the previous section that would have prevented bail or… I don’t have it, let me look at that part real quick.

I think it was… yeah, the parole and bail, that was changed from a ‘may’ to a ‘shall’.

Ours takes out section one, the part that was passed by the Senate.

It was section four, lines 90 through 94; that’s been removed to just allow that to continue to be a ‘may’ instead of a ‘shall’.

Again, not wanting to prevent somebody from being… allowing the judges to have some discretion there as well, on potentially not detaining somebody that doesn’t need to be detained or paroled.

And then I’m trying to remember what… it’s changed a lot.

We did limit it back down to only felonies.

The part that passed the senate in section two, it dealt with felonies, misdemeanors, [or ordinances 00:02:52], violations; we paired that down back to felonies, just talking to people.

We do want to capture the bad guys.

The people who are a threat to our society, in our country, the ones that are committing felony acts… to be able to detain them, turn them over to ICE and have them sent back to their home country is something I think we can all agree on.

I think even talking to people while working on this, who are representing some of the people concerned with this, they were even on board with the felonies because it would be the ones that are a threat to society.

If you do capture them, it relieves the burden on our society.

Those are some of the changes that come to the top of my head, just trying to look through the comparison over the last… you’ve kept me busy over the last week and a half, working with people on the committee and people of interest that were concerned about this so…

Chairman:            Well, any common sense changes are appreciated.

Mr. Clark:              Yes, sir.

So, that’s pretty much the new substitute.

I think it’s trying to capture the heart of what was trying to be done in a way that still protects human rights and protects our society as well.

With that Mr Chairman, that’s- [crosstalk 00:04:31] that’s the substitute.

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Chairman:            [inaudible 00:04:33] Mr. Petrea.

Rep Jesse Petrea recognized:          Yes sir, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I first have a question and then I want to speak to my colleague here.

First, for the Senator; so, some of the changes that I’m just seeing as well for the first time, all of us, most of us… ultimately, you began by pointing out an issue we have that the current law is not being enforced, do we accomplish anything if we change those ‘shall’s to ‘may’s?

Senator:                The area of non-cooperation is with the local authorities.

Most authorities cooperate; [crosstalk 00:05:19] there are pockets that don’t, [crosstalk 00:05:23] so-called sanctuary jurisdictions.

I don’t know, is my answer to that.

I think the state of Georgia, our own authorities that are directly under supervision of the governor and legislature, I think we can give some latitude but it’s the non-cooperative local jurisdictions that if you change ‘may’ to ‘shall’, I mean ‘shall’ to ‘may’, may not solve the problem.

Now, limiting it to felonies might be less of a problem than changing ‘shall’ to ‘may’.

Mr. Petrea:          That makes sense to me as well; and I, like you, think our goal is felons.

So, my second point is to my colleague, here.

So the information that I passed out today and that I spoke to the Department of Corrections commissioner about…

Let me first just, for everyone here to be aware, I’ve spent several years over the last few years working on parole reform of legal citizens; and one of the things I’ve focused on is transparency, because I believe that everybody has a right to know who we’re letting out on parole.

We’re talking about legal citizens.

So, my interest in this bill was adding something to your bill that I thought was very important, and that was transparency.

So the information you alluded to that everybody here has before them, I want to mention a couple of things; so right now today, there are 193 child molesters who are offenders with ICE detainers in Georgia prisons.

Okay?

I want everybody here to hear that.

There are 134 murderers, okay, who are here on ICE detainers in Georgia prisons.

There are a 103 armed robberies, there are 100 aggravated assaults, there are 98 rapes, there are 65 aggravated child molestations, 61 kidnappings, 45 volunteer manslaughters, and here’s what I wanted to add… and here’s what I did add, and I’m gonna make an amendment to add back to this bill: not that anybody’s personal information is given, not anybody’s name, not ‘Joe Smith’, but that the public has a right to transparency.

The people have a right to know that the degree to which this issue impacts them and their public safety.

This information should be public knowledge; I’m able to get it as a legislator, but my constituents don’t have access to this information.

And the amendment that I had offered would require that this information, just these wrong numbers, the 1,360 of these felons that are in our state prison system… it has nothing to do with jails… nothing to do with our sheriffs, but that this information would be transparent to the people of Georgia.

Is that not correct, Senator?

Senator:                I can’t argue with that.

Rep. Petrea:          And so I want everybody here to be aware of what my colleague just spoke to try and remove from this bill, because I will offer an amendment to add it back.

Chairman:            Mr. Clark.

Mr. Clark:              I just want to make aware that the removing of that section came at the behest of the Sheriffs’ Association, so that wasn’t just me doing something willy-nilly; it was the request of some people.

I supported my colleague last year on a measure that when these people, these felons, who are illegally here served their time and are released back into the general population because the home country will not receive them… I supported his measure to have that kind of information shared with the public.

I don’t know if knowing this information is vital to public safety while they’re in prison and detained.

I mean, if you have 7,000 child molesters in prison and 193 of them are illegal, I think it’s more important to know that there are 7,000 child molesters in population and then once you release them back into population… if a felon is required, you know, they’ve served their time… we’re not gonna force somebody to stay in prison forever because that’s inhumane, I guess… and their home country won’t take them back, then I don’t have a problem with putting that information out to the general population because then I do think that that’s when it becomes a public safety matter.

I don’t think it matters while they’re in prison if there are 193 illegal child molesters or 7,000 child molesters in prison; that’s just my take on that.

That came on the behest of the Sheriffs’ Association because they feel like it would become a negative knock on them… people would question whether or not they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, if the people are in prison instead of being sent back home.

That was where that came from.