Marietta Daily Journal

Activist calls for probe into GDOT E-Verify affidavit
by Katy Ruth Camp

krcamp@mdjonline.co m

September 09, 2010

MARIETTA – Local anti-illegal immigration activist D.A. King is calling for an investigation into whether the Georgia Department of Transportation and Lithonia-based Bromell Manicured Lawns violated Georgia immigration law. However, Sheriff Neil Warren said such an investigation is not “in my jurisdiction or within my authority.”

King first made his request to Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head on Sept. 3, and made his second formal request for an investigation on Wednesday. King said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told him he could not make a request for investigation as a citizen and had to “go through a sheriff, chief of police, district attorney or district court judge as they can enforce and adjudicate the law.” Head sent King’s request Wednesday to Warren, stating that reports of a crime are generally sent to the Sheriff’s Office or another law enforcement agency.

King said the affidavit GDOT has used in the past is illegal, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as it does not require contract companies to officially attest to using the federal citizenship confirmer E-Verify until after contracts have been awarded.

“The law says in an effort for us to create a level playing field for contractors, as a public employer, you may not consider a bid until that contractor making the bid has submitted the affidavit, giving its user number and date of MOU (Memorandum of Understanding),” King said. “They can’t even consider the bid until that’s happened. GDOT is telling people that successful low bidders will then be required to submit an affidavit saying they are using E-Verify. But that only verifies newly hired employees, and if you hired someone yesterday, you can’t check them. So GDOT has allowed contractors to bid on a projection of the cost of illegal labor, and then be hired. And that is far from right.”

GDOT spokesman David Spear acknowledged Wednesday that the organization was not following the law by not requiring contractors to submit their E-Verify user numbers, but only inadvertently. He added that GDOT has since changed its affidavit.

“The department’s mission is transportation. It its not immigration policy,” he said. “We’re going to do what we have to in accordance to the law, and frankly, we appreciate this being brought to our attention because we overlooked it. But the responsibility of making sure contractors comply with those laws lies with the contractors – not us. We don’t have the personnel or the mission to go out everyday and enforce immigration compliance. We have hundreds of thousands of contracts at any given time, and the responsibility is absolutely theirs.”

In the case of Bromell Manicured Lawns, which is under a $500,000 contract with GDOT for its mowing services, King said the company president, Michael Bromell, signed an affidavit dated June 16, 2010, that the company was using E-Verify as a condition of obtaining a work contract with GDOT. But King said, according to documents he obtained from U.S. Homeland Security, the company did not obtain an MOU with E-Verify until Aug. 26, 2010.

According to Georgia Senate Bill 447, passed this spring, “Contractors and subcontractors convicted for false statements based on a violation of this subsection shall be prohibited from bidding on or entering into any public contract for 12 months following such conviction.”

Such violations performed by public bodies, such as GDOT, however, incur no penalties.

Spear said Bromell’s company is still employed with GDOT. The phone number listed for Bromell’s company has been disconnected.

“If it ends up being the case that they did something wrong, we did not know that. They indicated to us that they had gotten E-Verify either in May or June, which was the time of the original contract. If turns out they didn’t get it until August 26th, then certainly they’ve violated their contract terms and we will address that with them. Whether that is the case remains to be seen, but what they have indicated to us is that they got it in May, we took their word, and they signed a sworn affidavit. If that proves somehow to be otherwise, we will do what we need to do internally,” Spear said.

When asked if that meant revoking the company’s contract with GDOT, Spear said: “That would be likely.”

Warren said Wednesday evening that he had not had an opportunity to look at the full complaint, but that after looking at it briefly, neither the lawn company nor GDOT are within his jurisdiction and therefore he cannot investigate them for their actions.

Still, King said he hopes someone, whether it is the Georgia Attorney General’s Office or the GBI, would conduct an investigation into both GDOT and Bromell’s actions, as it would “create some fear in contractors and other agencies that there will be an enforcement of the law.”

King said government bodies are not held responsible for their own actions because the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association have effectively lobbied against provisions in recent immigration laws that would pose penalties on public bodies that break the law.

“The district attorney quoted to me this morning, ‘If there is no penalty, there is no crime.’ But these are blatant violations of the law. Taxpaying Americans are being swindled out of jobs in Georgia because of the actions of GDOT,” King said. “It looks to me like the good ole boys at GDOT are even less interested in the rule of law than they are in welfare of the American people.”

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – Activist calls for probe into GDOT E Verify affidavit