I have a hat to burn. (click on image to enlarge)

photo Wiki

Email Survey from Georgia’s 6th District Congresswoman Karen Handel today:

District Survey

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. It is important that we come together as a community to make our voices heard in Washington. With your help, I will fight for the causes that unite us.

Do you think you and your family will benefit under the new tax reform package?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Should Congress take steps to reform Medicare and Social Security to ensure their availability for future generations?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Do you agree with President Trump’s 2-for-1 regulation order, requiring each new regulation to be followed by the removal of two existing regulations?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Do you support reforming various government programs to include work requirements or skills training to close the opportunity gap?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Should we do more to tackle the national debt?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Would you like to see Obamacare repealed and replaced with a patient-focused solution?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Do you support reforming our higher education system to better prepare our students for the jobs and opportunities of the 21st century?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Do you believe that the Veterans’ Administration (V.A.) requires a major overhaul?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Do you oppose a path to legal status for DACA recipients?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Do you oppose a path to legal status for illegal immigrants (other than DACA recipients)?
Yes
No
No Opinion

Do you support building a wall along our southern border?
Yes
No
No Opinion

What are the most important issues for Karen to focus on?
Reforming Obamacare
Ensuring a strong national defense
Increasing economic opportunity for all
Growing our economy and creating jobs
Securing our border
Reducing the size of the Federal Government
Balancing the budget
Opposing out of control regulations
Education reform
Making the V.A. work for Veterans

Do you have any further feedback for Karen?

Here.

Immigration entry stamp on the inside page of a passport. Photo: FrameworkInstitute.org

–> Table 1. Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status: Fiscal Years 1820 To 2016 

Here.

Bonus: Where do most immigrants come from now? Here.

Georgia drivers license issued to legal immigrants, legal guest workers, students with legal temporary visas, illegal aliens with deferred action on deportation (including but not limited to ‘DACA’) or delayed deportations
photo: DDS

–> UPDATE: EAD codes begin on page 12-21

UPDATE: 63% of Georgians polled oppose any drivers licenses to any illegal aliens. Here.

Associated Press headline, August 23, 2012: “Some illegal immigrants can get a Georgia drivers license.”

USCIS official spokesperson, October 16, 2017: “Current law does not grant any legal status for the class of individuals who are current recipients of DACA. Recipients of DACA are currently unlawfully present in the U.S. with their removal deferred.”

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr: “We have continuously and clearly taken the position in ongoing legal cases that DACA does not confer legal status.” July 17, 2017 (WABE News).

FACT SHEET: GEORGIA DRIVERS LICENSES/ID CARDS AND ILLEGAL ALIENS

Fact: Only illegal aliens have a need for a delay or deferral in deportation.

Fact: The federal immigration authorities’ practice of deferring deportation proceedings is decades old (long before Obama’s DACA decree), was begun as an informal enforcement priority tool and was never passed or approved by congress. Deferred action on deportation is a tradition, not a law and was intended to be used on a case-by-case, individual basis.

–> Fact: The REAL ID Act implemented after and because of the horror of 9/11 says that illegal aliens who have been granted deferred action on deportation or who have been ordered deported but then apply for permanent residence can use that temporary condition as “evidence of lawful status” for the purpose of obtaining a federally approved drivers license or state ID card only – it does not change the fact that according to USCIS – and the Georgia Attorney General – they are illegal aliens for any other purpose.

UPDATED 11 Feb 2021: In March, 2019 The 11th Circuit ruled that deferred action on deportation DACA recipients do not have lawful presence or legal status for Georgia BOR admission purposes (same policy the regulates instate tuition) – this does not effect these illegal alien’s eligibility for drivers licenses and ID because of the language in the REAL ID Act. Again we note: STATES ARE NOT REQUIRED UNDER REAL ID ACT TO ISSUE DRIVERS LICENSES TO ILLEGAL ALIENS). NOT ALL RECIPIENTS OF DEFERRED ACVTION ON DEPORTATION HAVE DACAND VISA VERSA….

There is no requirement that any state “shall” issue the illegals a drivers license, only that it may.

→REAL ID Act (here): “SEC. 202. MINIMUM DOCUMENT REQUIREMENTS AND ISSUANCE STANDARDS FOR FEDERAL RECOGNITION. (a) Minimum Standards for Federal Use- (B) EVIDENCE OF LAWFUL STATUS- A State shall require, before issuing a driver’s license or identification card to a person, valid documentary evidence that the person has…approved deferred action status; or has a pending application for adjustment of status to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States or conditional permanent resident status in the United States.”

Fact: States issue driver’s licenses under the constitutional authority of the Tenth Amendment. Each state can lawfully issue any type of drivers license/ID Cards it chooses. Again: The REAL ID Act sets minimum standards for federal acceptance of drivers licenses/ID Cards. Non REAL ID Act – approved ID cannot be used to enter federal buildings or to board airliners. * And it is much more difficult to use them to vote in Georgia elections.

Fact: According to DDS since 2012 Georgia DDS has issued, renewed or replaced more than 50,000 drivers licenses/ID Cards for illegal aliens (of all ages) who have already been ordered deported or have deferred action on deportation.

Fact: Other states, including Michigan , South Carolina and California issue multi-tiered drivers licenses and ID Cards. One (optional) tier being REAL ID Act approved – another tier not REAL ID Act approved.

Fact: The Georgia drivers licenses and ID Cards currently issued to illegal aliens who have applied to obtain legal permanent residence after being ordered deported and/or with deferred action on deportation are exactly like the driving and ID credentials we issue to legal immigrants, students on a temporary visa and guest workers such as KIA and Mercedes Benz executives here with a legal guest worker visa. They read “Limited Term.”

Fact: Georgia DDS issues different drivers licenses and ID Cards (vertically oriented) to applicants – including American citizens – who are under age twenty-one.

Georgia drivers license issued to drivers who are under age twenty-one

Fact: Most nations, including Mexico, do not issue any drivers licenses or ID cards to illegals.

Fact: Lacking a policy change from DDS officials, the Georgia General Assembly has complete authority to legislate the requirement that DDS change the driving and ID credentials issued to the illegal aliens with the above outlined status so that the document clearly shows they are not legal immigrants and the document is not REAL ID Act approved.

**UPDATE February 8: Yesterday, I received a reply from the official spokes person, Pamela Wilson, at USCIS asking which EAD codes represented aliens with lawful status. I am told this comes direct from the office of legal consul. I past it below.

“USCIS Response:

The categories of individuals who are eligible to apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) are listed in the Code of Federal Regulations at 8 CFR 274a.12(a)-(c), and in the Instructions for Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization.  Individuals in the following EAD categories are applicants for lawful status.  Many individuals in these categories are applying for change or adjustment of their current lawful status, but some may not be in status:

(c)(8)  Aliens with pending applications for asylum

(c)(9)/(c)(16)/(c)(20)/(c)(22)/(c)(24) Aliens applying for lawful permanent resident status

(c)(10)  Aliens applying for cancellation of removal

(c)(19)  Aliens applying for Temporary Protected Status

(c)(31) Self petitioners under the Violence Against Women Act

Individuals in the following categories do not have lawful status.  They have either been granted temporary relief from removal, or cannot be removed due to the refusal of all countries designated to receive the alien, or because the removal of the alien is otherwise impracticable or contrary to the public interest:

(a)(10)  Aliens granted withholding of deportation or removal

(a)(11)  Aliens granted deferred enforced departure

(a)(13)/(14)  Aliens granted a stay of removal under the Family Unity Program

(c)(14)/(33)  Aliens in a period of deferred action

(c)(18)  Aliens granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture, and aliens under a final order of removal who are on an order of supervision because they cannot be immediately removed

Finally, in some cases, abused spouses of certain nonimmigrants who are eligible for an EAD under (c)(27)-(c)(30) may not be in status.”

##

L.A. Times
January 14, 2018

OP-ED

What the ‘Dreamer’ fight is really about

The loud fight over what will happen to America’s “Dreamers” isn’t what it seems. For both sides, it’s a fig leaf used to mask their true intentions.

In his first term, Barack Obama admitted that he had no constitutional authority (“I’m president, I’m not king”) to grant amnesties. Yet during his campaign for reelection in 2012 he created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which conferred a temporary reprieve from deportation to young people brought to this country as minors.

Now Democrats are demanding the preservation and institutionalization of the DACA program. One day soon, they will likely demand its expansion. They do not control either house of Congress or the presidency. They do not enjoy a majority of state legislatures and governorships. To get their way, they are counting on either favorable public opinion or threats to shut down the government.

Democrats are so focused on the 800,000 Dreamers — less than 10% of the undocumented population — because they’re politically photogenic and for now seen as the easiest group to exempt from efforts to control illegal immigration. In blanket fashion, the media consistently report that they are model youth, fulfilling their proverbial “dreams” of finishing college and achieving upward mobility.

An irate public has had it with open borders.

That narrative lacks subtlety, if it’s not outright deceptive. The average age of DACA participants is now 24. Few after entering adulthood sought to address their known illegal status. Surveys suggest that most are not in school; fewer than 5% have graduated from college. Those employed earn a median hourly wage of $15.34, which means they are forced to compete on the lower end of the wage ladder. Only about a tenth of 1% of DACA youth serve in the U.S. military — fewer than 900 total.

Setting aside the reality of the Dreamer pool, the Democrats’ method of fighting for DACA suggests that they are broadly in favor of letting immigration dysfunction continue apace. Why else would they refuse to give President Trump any significant concessions in the DACA negotiations — no wall, no end to chain migration, no cessation of visa lotteries?

They know that if this generation of Dreamers gets a pass without broader reform, it will be followed by another and another, all expecting the same eventual exemptions.

Democrats once used to talk about ending outright illegal immigration. They worried that it put downward pressure on wages. They thought it eroded union efforts and sapped political support among Democrats’ blue-collar base, while overtaxing finite social services to the detriment of the American underclass… read the rest here.

Georgia Republicans in no hurry to end immigration stand-off

As an independent, conservative voter and a longtime pro-enforcement immigration researcher, it is stunning to watch the Republican faithful in Georgia remain silent on the lack of action and outright contempt shown them by many of the people they sent to Washington.

As just one example is the fact that no Georgia Republican has co-sponsored federal legislation aimed at real change in the American immigration system and settling the bizarre Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals amnesty for illegal aliens affair.

Authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, H.R. 4760 – Securing America’s Future Act of 2018, is complete and comprehensive. The bill in an outline would:

▪ Eliminate the Visa Lottery green card program.

▪ Eliminate chain migration and create a renewable temporary visa for parents of citizens to unite families at no cost to taxpayers.

▪ Reduce legal immigration levels by about 260,000 a year – a decrease of about 25 percent.

▪ Reforms the agricultural guest worker program.

▪ Sends additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to more high-risk embassies overseas to vet visitors and immigrants.

▪ Provide additional technology, roads and other tactical infrastructure to secure the border.

▪ Add 5,000 Border Patrol Agents and 5,000 Customs and Border Protection Officers.

▪ Require full implementation of the biometric entry/exit system at all air, land and sea ports of entry.

▪ Makes E-Verify mandatory for all employers.

▪ Authorizes the Department of Justice to withhold law enforcement grants from sanctuary cities.

▪ Allows Department of Homeland Security to detain dangerous illegal immigrants who cannot be removed.

▪ Reduces asylum fraud by tightening the “credible fear” standard to root out frivolous claims and increases penalties for fraud and terminates asylum for individuals who voluntarily return home.

▪ Grants legalization to DACA recipients by issuing a 3-year renewable visa with work permit.

photo: DIS

It is amazing that conservative Republicans are not burning up the U.S. Capitol phone lines on this common sense protection of American workers and solution to the lack of sanity in our immigration system.

Another example? The United States has no official language.

Introduced in March 2017, the English Unity Act (H.R. 997) will make English our official national language. The bill has no Democratic sponsors from Georgia and as of January 16, according to Congress.Gov, Republican members of the House, Tom Graves, Karen Handel, Austin Scott and Rob Woodall, have joined the Dems in not supporting the official English bill.

Voters who are too timid to demand accountability from the people they hire to represent them surely have to accept that they have the government they deserve.

D.A. King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society.

Read more here: 

Gainesville Times

January 16, 2018

Hall County reversed course Tuesday when the Hall County Elections Board voted to scrap plans to provide ballots in Spanish.

Board members voted Tuesday to rescind an April vote to adopt the new ballots for county and state elections amid heavy opposition from the public.

At the same meeting, the board voted to establish a committee to study the costs, but that committee wouldn’t report its findings until January 2019.

The vote to rescind the ballots was 3-2, with the board’s two Democrats against rescinding, its Republicans in favor and nonpartisan Chairman Tom Smiley also voting in favor of rescinding the 2017 vote… More here.