GALEO Inc. lobbyist Maria Palasios testifies against illegal alien drivers license reform legislation – March, 2018. Photo: Georgia state senate

Atlanta Journal Constitution

Readers write, May 29, 2018

Loopholes in immigration process warrant elaboration

The AJC report on a former illegal alien, Maria Palacios, suing the state for the right to run for legislative office raises important questions. We are told Palacios, now a lobbyist against immigration enforcement, “was brought by her parents to the United States from Mexico as an infant without authorization, and she became a U.S. citizen in 2017.”

There is much room for expansion here. Apparently, Palacios benefited from the executive DACA amnesty decree from former President Obama who told the nation “Now, let’s be clear — this is not amnesty, this is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship.”

More than a thousand illegal aliens with DACA have quietly obtained U.S. citizenship through exploiting a process of “advance parole” in which the victim of borders obtains permission to leave the U.S. for a “humanitarian” reason and is then allowed to re-enter lawfully, which can put them on a path to U.S. citizenship as if they were real immigrants.

We think readers deserve the whole story here.

D.A. KING, MARIETTA, THE DUSTIN INMAN SOCIETY    Here.

Photo: CAPS

SPLC joins corporate-funded anti-enforcement group, GALEO, in advocacy against passage of public safety legislation in Georgia

We happily predict SB452 goes to the governor’s desk. *UPDATED: Despite the fact that it had the votes to pass, SB 452 died on the last day of session when Republican Speaker David Ralston refused to allow a vote. He did however keep the House in session past midnight to get a bill passed on which his son was lobbyist. Here.

On a rainy Saturday a contractor (he is an American) is working across the hall to remove and replace our 1984 toilet — which reminded me of Morris Dees, Heidi Beirich and the SPLC….

Monday’s email (March 12, 2018) brought us two frantic emails from anti-enforcement advocacy groups urging us to act to kill legislation pending in the Georgia legislature. One of the groups, GALEO, is well known here for it’s anti-borders advocacy since 2003 and is financed by corporate Georgia (see Cox Enterprises (parent company of the AJC newspaper), Coca-Cola, Georgia Power, State Farm Insurance Co., Southwest Airlines, Telemundo, Univision et al). Run by a perpetually-angry ethnic hustler named Jerry Gonzalez, GALEO is notably radical enough that one of it’s former board member’s nomination for a federal judgeship died in the U.S. Senate because of the association. At DIS, we are proud of our work in stopping Dax Lopez from becoming a federal judge – and going to the state Supreme Court.

The other action alert was from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Both emails urged us to take action to stop passage of SB452, a bill aimed at identifying illegal aliens in Georgia law enforcement custody and sharing that information. According to the left-tilted Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, which also opposes the bill, SB452 is bad for “immigrants” — and Georgia. We disagree and are actively working for passage and have helped amend the bill to quantify the number of foreigners and, separately, the number of illegal aliens in the state corrections system.

The bill has already passed the Georgia Senate and is set to be heard in the House Public Safety Committee Monday.

From the GBPI:

“The legislation requires local police departments and jails across Georgia to take a series of steps once an unauthorized immigrant comes into their custody. That includes notifying local prosecutors, requiring sentencing courts to review immigration papers and, most importantly, handing over that Georgian’s address and other personal information to ICE. The legislation envisions a seamless process that takes custody of any undocumented resident who comes into contact with Georgia’s court system, even for minor violations like a parking ticket, and hands them over to federal immigration agents.

 

A local NPR station hates SB452 too. Rep Jesse Petrea is set to shepherd the bill through the House process. Petrea is a hero from last year here. We happily predict this one goes to the governor’s desk.

With any mention of immigration enforcement and protecting Americans from illegal alien criminals (note: Heidi hates the term “crimigrants”), it is easy to understand why the Marxist hate mongers at the SPLC are up in arms against the bill, but as far as we can remember, this is the first time since we started our pro-enforcement effort here in 2003 that we have seen them send out an alert against specific legislation. It makes me want to take a shower, but we have been on their email list – as well as GALEO’s – for fifteen years. When pro-enforcement groups advocate for passage of such bills or enforcement of immigration laws, the crazies call it “hate.”

Here is the message from GALEO and below is the we-hate-imigration-enforcement, kill-the-bill goop from the SPLC:

Follow SPLC

Below is a photo of Georgia Governor Nathan Deal from earlier this month. He is helping out the anti-enforcement lobbyists at the ‘Asian Americans Advancing Justice’ who were lobbying hard against SB 452 (see the image below the photo), until it passed in the senate today. Now they will lobby the Republican controlled House to stop passage.

• You can read the liberal AJC on SB 452 here.  

We need phone calls to your state House members “Yes, to SB452!” Contact info here.

–> SB452 is a bill that will require police and courts to help with immigration enforcement in Georgia.  You can read the caption description of the bill here. It will save lives and reduce the number of illegal aliens in Georgia, where we have more illegals than Arizona. AAAJ is working with the anti-borders GALEO on this lobbying effort to kill immigration enforcement in Georgia.

The photo and the info here was taken from the GALEO Facebook page. Whether we elect a Republican or Democrat, it seems we always end up with a governor who snuggles up to the anti-enforcement mob.

‎” Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta‎ to Asian American Legislative Breakfast and Lobby DayLike Page

Thanks to EVERYONE who turned out to make this event a success. We truly appreciate the support!
Special thanks to our elected officials, featured speakers, sponsors, volunteers, organizations, and individuals who came out to support!
Professional photos are coming soon!”

Graphic as seen on the anti-borders GALEO facebook page

 

photo: AJC.com

The AJC “news” report is HERE.

I have added some links to the letters below to educate the reader. I post them here in case the AJC forgets to publish any of them.

*Added October 30, 2017 8:45 PM: The letters below were sent to the AJC and copied to me. The one above was posted tonight in the AJC for the Oct. 31 edition. The author did not copy me.

__

To the editor,

As an immigrant and an advisory board member of the Dustin Inman Society, I find your articles that repeatedly characterize the Dustin Inman Society as anti-immigrant, and now via slanders of the Southern Poverty Law Center, as a “nativist extremist group,” to be extremely offensive.

My parents and aunts and uncles fled a communist regime and spent years in refugee camps, and only emigrated after finding sponsors. They went through the proper steps.

One of the most important civics lessons I learned as a schoolgirl in Rochester, New York, in the 1960s was that the United States system was based on fairness.

To blur the lines between legal and illegal, as your newspaper has repeatedly done, is a violation of the underlying principles of American justice and an insult to all immigrants.

Sincerely,
Mary Grabar
Clinton, NY 13323

—

Dear editor,

My family recently returned to Texas where I grew up in a border town after 16 years in the Atlanta area. We still monitor Georgia politics, especially immigration issues. I am a proud Latina donor and board member of The Dustin Inman Society; we follow our friend D.A. King’s efforts to help people understand the truth on immigration and the law.

I was stunned and outraged when I read the AJC piece on King and the Immigration Board that curiously featured the SPLC and remarks from Jerry Gonzalez of GALEO. Gonzalez is widely known for opposition to any immigration enforcement efforts – state or federal. The Anti Defamation League has criticized SPLC for faking a “hate-group” crisis.

Georgia corporations, including the AJC’s parent company, Cox Enterprises, largely fund GALEO. It is insulting that this wasn’t noted in the AJC piece about D.A. King and The Dustin Inman Society’s citizen donors.

Maria Silvia Montoya

Sherman, TX 75092

—

Dear editor,

As a Black American conservative and proud member of the Board of Advisors of the Dustin Inman Society, I was saddened to see the AJC report on the Immigration Enforcement Review Board that seemed to stray into smear politics.

I have been a friend of D.A. King for more than a decade and have worked alongside him as a volunteer at the Gold Dome to educate legislators on our illegal immigration crisis. I have also watched the SPLC smear conservative political opponents as “hate groups” in an effort to discredit our work. Referring to D.A. King as anything but an honest, hard working patriot who believes in immigration sanity is shameful.

I have had first hand experience with the SPLC when, along with many Black, Asian and Hispanic Americans, I attended an informative 2015 immigration seminar in Washington, DC that the SPLC later falsely described as a “white nationalist” meeting.

The AJC has damaged its reputation by using the race-baiting and discredited SPLC as an authority on immigration and integrity.

Inger Eberhart
Kennesaw

—

To the editor:

Your article entitled “Georgia’s immigration enforcement panel draws scrutiny” came across as over the top biased against the Dustin Inman Society and its founder D.A. King. The credibility really went down the tubes when you used The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a supposed reliable source. By their definition I would be considered a hate group because of a Christian organization I belong to that believes in traditional values. You can do better than this.

Leslie McPherson
Villa Rica, GA

—

Dear editor,

Re; the AJC on D.A. King: The Dustin Inman Society is named after a 16 year-old Woodstock boy who was killed by an illegal alien who escaped capture and is now hiding out in Mexico. D.A. King has been fighting illegal immigration since he quit his own business in 2003. In your report we find out the SPLC wants to label The Dustin Inman Society a “hate group.”

King should be thanked for the complaints against the officials in Georgia who are evidently violating state laws.

The SPLC is a fake civil rights group that has a poor record. In 1994 Alabama, the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper reported African-Americans had never “held top management positions in the center’s [then] 23-year history, and some former employees say blacks are treated like second-class citizens.”

That the AJC reporter used the discredited SPLC to attack King and the Dustin Inman Society says a lot about the AJC reporter.

Bill Buckler

Kennesaw

—

Editor,

The article this week about the Dustin Inman Society and complaints about violations of state laws on illegal immigration filed by D.A. King seemed to us like the AJC had other things on their mind.

Inserting the SPLC into the news article was rather obvious.

My wife is an immigrant, which means she is here lawfully. We resent the AJC headlines that read “immigrant” when the topic of the story is clearly illegal aliens who are usually portrayed as victims. We want our borders secured and our laws enforced. Even for immigrants. The SPLC attacks virtually everyone who thinks like this. Your reporter also told us that Jerry Gonzalez doesn’t like King or the immigration enforcement board, but we saw no reference to where Gonzalez gets the money to operate GALEO while he protests against immigration enforcement.

We need more D.A. Kings and far fewer people like Gonzalez and the SPLC staff. And we need fair reporting.

John Litland

Marietta

GALEO’s Jerry Gonzalez – photo, DIS

“Shorter: The SPLC says the Nation of Islam is a “hate group” and Jerry Gonzalez of GALEO Inc. is partners in the anti-enforcement Cobb United for Change Coalition with the Nation of Islam.

_______

Brown supremacist Jerry Gonzalez: An ethnic hustler with ties to “hate group”

By his own mindless standards, the Executive Director of GALEO, Jerry Gonzalez, has ties to at least one “hate group.” Which makes his latest race-baiting hissy fit, smear-shot at my pro-enforcement friend Phil Kent all the more obvious and comical.

Under Jerry (Gerado E.) Gonzalez’s leadership, the anti-enforcement immigration corporation GALEO partnered up with several marginal groups in 2008 to form what they called the “Cobb United for Change Coalition” here in Cobb County, Georgia.

The groups and their leaders involved in this coalition included the Nation of Islam (headed nationally by the Rev. Louis Farrakhan), the corporate-funded Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (Jerry Gonzalez), the New Order National Human Rights Organization (Gerald Rose), the Cobb Immigrant Alliance (Rich Pellegrino), the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (Mexican citizen and former Atlanta Mexican Consul General Teodoro Maus), the Cobb Southern Christian Leadership Conference (the Rev. Dwight Graves), the Family Life Restoration Center (Luther Washington Jr.) and according to an Marietta Daily Journal editorial, the National Council of La Raza (Janet Murguía).

For the readers who do not understand Spanish, a translation: The last group mentioned above translates as “The National Council of the Race.” After forty-six years, La Raza has changed it’s name.

When they aren’t smearing Christian groups and caring for its off shore bank accounts, the SPLC hucksters, put out a “hate map” of “hate groups” which has included the Nation of Islam, one of GALEO’s partners in the Cobb United for Change Coalition.

Shorter: The SPLC says the Nation of Islam is a “hate group” and Jerry Gonzalez of GALEO Inc. is partners in the anti-enforcement Cobb United for Change Coalition with the Nation of Islam.

For mainstream Georgians who have the pleasure of not being familiar with “Angry Jerry” Gonzalez, it may help to know that he is one of the ethnic hustler, hard leftists who uses the endless smears from the discredited SPLC to attempt to keep pro-American dialogue out of the immigration debate. But he is also a wanna be tough guy when he doesn’t like what you have to say. Example: A 2011 Rome News-Tribune report (“Immigration discussion gets heated during panel”  recounts Gonzalez’s antics at a mainstream event in that lovely Georgia city.

Apparently, Gonzalez was “uninvited” as a panel member on a scheduled meeting focused on Georgia’s E-Verify law.

According to the Rome news report, Gonzalez showed up anyway, angrily shouted at Rome’s diminutive and well-liked state Representative, Katie Dempsey, from the audience during and after the event and ended up being escorted out of the event, the building and off the property by Rome police officers. Dempsey was a cosigner on the bill that created the E-Verify requirement for private employers, HB 87. Word around Rome is that the meeting organizers learned of Jerry’s involvement in a lawsuit against the governor and the state to overturn stop enforcement/HB 87 and concluded that Gonzalez wasn’t the best choice for a rational, unbiased discussion.

We agree. And we wonder if Angry Jerry will chase and scream at Phil Kent at the coming event. In the spirit of the leftist smear artists, somebody may want to ask Jerry if he still beats his husband. 

Led by Gonzalez, GALEO toxic for federal judge nominee

Angry Jerry is likely still hysterical over the fact that the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee tossed consideration of a GALEO board member, Dax Lopez, after Barack Obama nominated him for a federal judge seat here in Georgia. Georgia Senator David Perdue, a committee member, made it clear that Lopez’s ties to the radical, Jane Fonda-funded GALEO Inc. caused enough concern to reject Dax Lopez.

If Angry Jerry’s years of marching in the streets of Georgia and Washington D.C. demanding an end to voter ID and enforcement of American immigration laws wasn’t what illustrated the anti-American nature of Jerry Gonzalez, GALEO and it’s mission, maybe it was the fact that Gonzalez is a former employee of the radical MALDEF.

To get an idea of the ideology involved in rabid haters like Gonzalez, it helps to know what a MALDEF founder, Mario Obledo, made it quite clear on the radio in 1998: “California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave. They ought to go back to Europe.” 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Jerry Gonzalez, race-baiting hater.

A continuing educational series on Georgia’s illegal alien lobby

UPDATE: I don’t know how it got by me, but until today I did not realize that Georgia state Rep. Brenda Lopez Romero was an illegal alien who somehow scored an amnesty/change of status. See below, from the AJC on Feb 26, 2020.

“Brenda Lopez Romero, D-Norcross, who said after spending 12 years as an undocumented immigrant, she wanted to support Fosque for speaking on behalf of those who were most marginalized.” Here.

Photo: Youtube

Brenda Lopez (Romero)           **  @VoteBrendaLopez  **

• Georgia State Rep, District 99 (Norcross, in Gwinnett County) HERE
• Bonus insight into mass, uncontrolled immigration’s effect on Gwinnett County, Georgia HERE.
• Democrat
• Immigration lawyer
• Born in Mexico, became U.S. citizen “just before law school.”
• Anti-enforcement immigration activist on the board of the tribalist, corporate-funded  GALEO  – see HERE
• As a state legislator, joins GALEO in opposition to English as constitutional official language of Georgia – says “it breeds distrust and prejudice against minority groups.” HERE.
• Twitter
• *Speaker at GALEO fundraiser September, 2016

Join us & celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month! EARLY REGISTRATION CLOSES ON FRIDAY! RSVP TODAY!
Keynote speaker:
Alejandra Ceja
Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics
The 2016 Hispanic Heritage Month Luncheon is one of the principle fundraising events for GALEO & the GALEO Latino Community Development Fund.
Date: Friday, September 30, 2016.
Time: 11:30 AM-1:30 PM.
Location: Hyatt Regency Atlanta Perimeter at Villa Christina, 4000 Summit Boulevard, Atlanta, Georgia, 30319
→Special remarks provided by: *Brenda Lopez, Representative-elect, Georgia House of Representatives, 1st Latina in the Georgia Legislature.
Mistress of Ceremonies: Lara-Carolina Fernandez, Telemundo Atlanta

• On being American: Says illegal aliens with illegal Obama DACA amnesty “are basically more American than some of us that may have been born in this country, right?…these are American kids for all intents and purposes.”
• Rep Lopez was one of twenty-six House members who voted against HB 452, which requires that the GBI share information it is already receiving from ICE on the release of violent, convicted criminal aliens. HERE
•  Lopez told a local TV reporter that alerting Georgia’s county sheriffs and the public when criminal aliens – some of whom have been convicted of murder, rape, kidnapping and child molestation – are released back into our communities instead of being deported is “the most “egregious” anti-immigrant bill in Georgia in nearly a decade.” The registry is “just fundamentally something that goes against our notions of privacy, also our notions of rehabilitation,” Lopez said.
• Note: GALEO lobbied against HB 452 in the committee process and led a forty-day activist campaign attempting to have the bill vetoed – HERE.
• HB 452 is now state law.

GALEO Power Breakfast fundraiser, May 19, 2017 GALEO

HB 452 passes the Georgia Senate

WE WIN ON HB 452!

ACTION NEEDED
–> Thank you, Rep Jesse Petrea!
404.657.1803 – Georgia Capitol office

We need financial help.

Dear friends,

Because of our work, HB 452 passed last night at about 10:00. It took a lot more effort than it should have in a Republican-controlled Georgia legislature. The senate was the problem, not the House. I was in the Capitol most of the day yesterday and much of the last three months. It is one of my least favorite locations to spend time.

To be honest, passing HB 452 in the Republican senate was as difficult as anything we have done since 2005 when we started the Dustin Inman Society with our own funds.

—> We need financial help. Donate HERE.

I cannot thank all of you enough for the phone calls and emails that poured in to the state senate. I also want to thank several Georgia sheriffs who saw the wisdom of the bill and spoke loudly and often for the common sense bill’s passage. More on that later.

Our bill was so good and we exerted so much pressure to pass it in the correct form that another bill (SB1) that had a great deal of trouble was added onto HB 452 to insure SB1’s passage.

A simple explanation of the original part of HB 452 that we all worked for is this:

—> After Governor Deal signs HB 452 into law, GBI will be required to share information it has been receiving from ICE on criminal aliens who have been released into Georgia instead of being deported as they should be. These convicted criminals with convictions including murder, rape, kidnapping, child molestation and assault are walking American streets as I type this. GBI will be required to to send the ICE info as it arrives to the Sheriff’s Association and to post it on the GBI website so that every Georgian can see it. That’s it.

That is what the corporate-funded illegal alien lobby such as GALEO and the Latin American Association worked so hard to stop. That is what Republican state senators Tyler Harper and John Albers tried to water-down with ridiculously poor wording that was the laughing stock of people with legal knowledge of well-written legislation. We were successful in killing the Harper-Albers amendment and a replacement amendment from the senate that was almost as bad. *

To be clear: South Georgia state Senator Tyler Harper, Chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee is a real problem for Georgia and for pro-enforcement Americans. More on that later as well.

Many thanks to our friend, state Senator Hinter Hill for carrying HB 452 in the senate!

We win.

ACTION NEEDED! Say thank you!
I ask you to now take a quick minute to make a call to the capitol office of Savannah state Rep Jesse Petrea who sponsored HB 452 and methodically worked to insure his bill was as well-written and understood as it could possibly be.

To be clear: We would not have seen the passage of HB 452 without the diligence and determination of Jesse Petrea. Please leave a message at his office today. “Please tell Rep Petrea we called from our house and that we are grateful for his hard work on HB 452. We need more pro-enforcement legislators like him.”

—> Please call Rep Petrea’s office now. 404-657-1803 and leave a message with his assistant. We predict Rep Petrea will go far. BTW – He pronounces his name “Pea-tree.”

Georgia state Rep Jesse Petrea – District 166

Photo: CAPS

National Review featured HB 452 HERE.

Below are some of the opponents and what they told Georgia legislators about the bill.

American Immigration Lawyers Association:  Says: The federal government continues to monitor these aliens after release and that they are not returned to their home countries because they may be exposed to torture; worried that the bill could expose aliens who are working as informants; did not like the term “violent criminal alien” because they have already been punished.

Anti-enforcement GALEO intern witness Gisella Arriola told the committee that said immigrants do not feel safe.

Latin American Association lobbyist David Schaefer:  the bill may not be understood by immigrant communities and could depress the reporting of crimes in immigrant communities. Sharing information on criminal aliens – including murderers could make Georgia less safe.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice said this would lead to aliens and their families being targeted.

Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO) lobbyist was concerned that kidnapping was a violent offense that could cause information to be shared. Dis not appreciate that concerned that the legal term “alien” includes legal aliens.

Somali American Community Center said the law would be misused.

Marietta Daily Journal
December 8, 2016

Anthony White

Foreign language ballots may be coming soon

Cobb’s Hispanic voting population has nearly doubled since 2008 and now accounts for 3.8 percent of the county’s registered voters. If these numbers continue to grow, Cobb may find itself, like Gwinnett County, mandated to provide Spanish-language ballots and other materials to voters who may not speak and read English well.

Gwinnett County became the only Georgia county required to provide bilingual voting ballots and materials to its Hispanic voters by a U.S. Census Bureau designation released Monday. Under the designation, established by Section 203 of the Federal Voting Rights Act, counties with a minority voting population of more than 10,000 or greater than 5 percent that speak a single, non-English language must accommodate those voters by providing ballots and voting material in that population group’s language.

Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, said the designation is important because “more Latino voters will have equal access to be able to exercise their right to vote without having English language proficiency as a barrier.”

Gwinnett is the first Georgia county to receive this designation, but “other counties, like Cobb, Hall and Whitfield counties, are likely next,” Gonzalez said.

Janine Eveler, director of the Cobb Board of Elections, said she is aware of the designation, but isn’t sure if Cobb will be impacted anytime soon.

“My understanding is that the designations are made every five years,” Eveler said. “There’s no way to know where Cobb’s demographics will be at that time.”

Cobb does not provide Spanish-language or bilingual ballots.

According to the Georgia Secretary of State, in November 2016, there were 26,940 Hispanic voters registered in Gwinnett County, which accounted for 6.2 percent of the county’s 431,727 registered voters. Gwinnett’s total Latino population is estimated at 171,000 or 20.3 percent of the county’s total population, the U.S. Census Bureau reports.

By contrast, in November 2016, there were 16,428 registered Hispanic voters in Cobb which accounted for 3.8 percent of Cobb’s 423,890 registered voters. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that Cobb’s estimated 89,000 Hispanics or Latinos make up 12.5 percent of the Cobb’s total population.

Gonzalez said it would be premature to comment on the impact of the Latino vote in Gwinnett or Cobb County, but “Latino voters across the state of Georgia were turning out in large numbers as we have not seen before.”

Gonzalez also pointed out that “nationally only 19 percent of Latinos voted for Donald Trump, a historical low number for the GOP nominee.”

Although Cobb is not required to provide bilingual ballots under the U.S. Census designation, there are other provisions in the Voting Rights Act that may require the county to begin issuing Spanish-language ballots, Gonzalez said.

“People born and educated on the island of Puerto Rico are entitled to have access to Spanish language protections for voting as well and there are no numerical requirements,” he said.

According to Gonzalez, several counties in Georgia have Puerto Rican populations and those counties may be out of compliance with the Voting Rights Act by not providing bilingual ballots and other materials to Puerto Rican voters.

Eveler said she was not aware of this provision in the Voting Rights Act.  HERE

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and Loganville city council member Rey Martinez

It has long been my suspicion that at least some of the Georgia politicians who are involved with or become board members of the rabidly anti-enforcement GALEO don’t fully understand the level of ‘crazy’ at that corporate-funded mob run by Jerry Gonzalez when they sign up.

Example: Rey Martinez, a Loganville city council member and Chairman of the Public Safety Committee there was a member of the GALEO board of Directors  when Georgia Governor Nathan Deal appointed him  to the state’s Board of Commissioners of the Commission on Equal Opportunity in 2015. He is apparently no longer part of the GALEO family.

But Martinez is now an active and very visible Donald Trump supporter and has spoken out for Trump on Atlanta radio and at a recent Middle Georgia Trump rally that featured vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence and various Republican pols.

The Macon Telegraph covered the  August 29 Trump rally at the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter and reported on Martinez’s remarks supporting Trump/Pence ticket:

Rey Martinez, a Hispanic city councilman in Loganville, urged Hispanics to consider whether their lives have improved in the last eight years.

“We have been lied to and bamboozled,” he said. “We don’t need to keep going down the same path.”

I wonder if I am the only one who is curious about the seeming metamorphosis involved in being on the GALEO board of directors a year before being on the stage supporting Donald Trump, who is usually supportive of the immigration enforcement that GALEO fights on all fronts?

Or what military veteran Martinez would have to say if asked if he was aware of GALEO’s public safety “accomplishments” over the years before he joined and while he was on their board. Or if he has chatted with Jerry Gonzalez about their differences on a presidential candidate?