Audio

Tim Bryant: DA King, thanks for your time this morning.

D.A. King: Thank you Tim, thank you Jennifer, glad to be here.

Jennifer Pointer: Yes.

Tim: I can only imagine your reaction to this settlement. You tell me.

DA: Well Tim it’s a long story. Before I start I would like to extend my congratulations to the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Immigration Reporter Jeremy Redmon [00:00:19] for dropping any possible claim to a or pretense of having fair, accurate or balanced and complete information on their reporting on this. It is notable and won’t be forgotten. And also a big hearty thank you and congratulations for his courage to State Senator Josh McKoon for being the only legislator in a Republican controlled gold dome to, to have an interest in this or to carry this bill.

Tim:[00:01:00] All right. The specifics of the settlement this week though, which already and even in advance of the settlement the he state, the, the driver services department ah, Burt Brantley [00:00:56] they were working in this direction anyway and its evidently speeding up the approval process ah you had between May and June almost 2800 of these licenses. That’s up from 1800 ah, between January and May.

DA: Ah, okay, Tim let, I’m very grateful for this opportunity. First of all the, the insult to immigrants like my adopted sister and many of my friends and supporters in, in labeling these people who have won this lawsuit as in any way being described as an immigrant is insulting. And I hope we can all note the difference between an immigrant who joins the American family lawfully and an illegal alien who was here either because he crossed our border illegally or overstayed a Visa.

Jennifer Pointer: Sure.

DA:[00:02:00] The shorter story I can tell is this, Georgia has had in place laws with the intention of stopping any illegal alien from ever obtaining any kind of Georgia driver’s license or official state id card. The language was written such that it was a loophole created when Barack Obama in 2012 in his reelection bid decided to grant um, an executive amnesty to the illegal aliens who can claim to be brought here when they were children.

In that process he awarded them a work permit, a real one this time not the fake ones that they’ve been using.

Tim: Hmm.

DA: A real work permit and a valid social security, not one that was stolen from an American citizen or a real legal immigrant. With those two documents, a work permit and a social security number those were the precautions we had in the state law to stop an illegal alien from getting a driver’s license. Obama negated that language and made it possible for anyone with a work permit or a driver’s license to get a Georgia driver’s … Excuse me. Anyone with a work permit or a social security number to get a driver’s license.

[00:03:00] Josh McKoon bill was aimed at altering the language originally to go back to the original intent so that no illegal alien of any description no matter how they’re described in the Atlanta Journal Constitution could obtain one. For a period of time the Department of Driver’s Services was issuing driver’s licenses to all illegal aliens who could produce a work permit and a social security number. Then they realized that the Obama administration was granting work permits and social security numbers not just to people with this [inaudible 00:03:29] deferred action for childhood arrivals, but also to illegal aliens who had been recently arrested for being in the country illegally in raids and people who it was clear had already been gone through the court system and were under deportation orders.

[00:04:00] This lawsuit brought by the SPLC was aimed at that latter group. This entire news event is built around the fact that illegal aliens who do not have Obama’s deferred action on deportation amnesty who are here because either their country won’t take them back after they’re been ordered deported, or they’ve been ordered deported and their in the removal system and are going to have their status adjusted, have found a lawyer who will do that and then Obama administration has given them a work permit and a social security card. These are by no means immigrants, many of them are again illegal aliens who are already under deportation orders.

Jennifer: Yes.

Tim: And that’s the distinction we need to make there DA King, ah, under deportion orders you say.

DA: Many of them have then been ordered to be deported and their country will not take them back.

Jennifer: So, um, we were talking with, as Tim mentioned Senator, Senator Isaacson earlier and um …

Tim: Senator McKoon.

Jennifer:[00:05:00] Senator McKoon thank you. Sorry. (laughs) We’ve talked with several Senators this morning. Senator McKoon and he was saying that, you know, there, the dangers outweigh the benefits of illegal aliens getting driver’s licenses because I said well, is it not a benefit that you know now we have their photo id, we have their potential address, it’s real, etc. And I want to know what dangers you consider it to be for them to be getting their, you know, their driver’s license without showing any documentation. Because that bothers me as well that they don’t have to present any documentation whereas you, I, Tim or anyone else would have to.

DA: The do Jennifer, to be clear, they go to DDS and they present a birth certificate. You can only imagine from where it comes …

Tim: Yeah.

Jennifer: Right.

DA:[00:06:00] Whether or not it’s accurate or legal, it’s a foreign birth certificate. In Mexico for example none of the birth certificates of the various states are the same. I have found many birth certificates with multiple pictures on them that are taped on there along the, around on the border in Arizona. But the concept that we have to give the de facto national id card that we all use for everyday occurrences including boarding the airliners, opening bank accounts, renting cars and buying explosives to a [inaudible 00:06:07] illegal alien so that we know where they are I think is self-explanatory and it’s very unproductive concept. The danger is that again, in this country that national id card is a driver’s license, whether it’s Georgia or not. You can register to vote if it doesn’t happen automatically with a driver’s license. And one more time, we should all recognize that many people in the world hate this country and American and if you have a driver’s license you can board an airliner without any questions asked.

Tim: DA King got to leave it there. Up against the bottom of the hour break. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

Jennifer: Yes thank you so much.

DA: Thank you, thank you guys.