Decaturish.com

State immigration board will hear complaint against city of Decatur in January

By Mariann Martin, contributor

The state’s Immigration Enforcement Review Board has decided to move forward with a complaint filed by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle against the city of Decatur.

Cagle filed the complaint on Nov. 6. Cagle has accused the city of Decatur of violating state law prohibiting “sanctuary cities” because of the city’s decision to put in writing a longstanding policy regarding cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The city said it does not detain immigrants without a valid warrant from ICE and never has. Officers who violate the policy could face disciplinary action. The city says its policy is not in violation of state law.

The city’s attorney, Bryan Downs, questioned the motives behind the complaint at the Immigration Enforcement Review Board’s Nov. 15 meeting.

Downs asked why Cagle filed an immigration complaint against Decatur when other communities in Atlanta have very similar policies, including the city of Atlanta.

“And little city of Decatur, we kind of scratch our heads and are trying to figure that out. Is it just that he is picking on this small city and doesn’t want to go after a bigger city?” Downs said after Wednesday’s meeting.

Downs said he believes Cagle, the leading Republican candidate to replace Gov. Nathan Deal, is doing it for political reasons.

“He’s one minute filing the complaint, and the next minute posting this on his campaign website,” Downs said… READ THE REST HERE.

Photo: AJC.com

Atlanta Journal Constitution
November 14, 2017

Georgia immigration enforcement board weighs hiring outside help

Georgia’s Immigration Enforcement Review Board is considering hiring a private investigator or a paralegal to help it get through a backlog of complaints, most of them filed by longtime anti-illegal immigration activist D.A. King.

Appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker, the seven-member board — which has a $20,000 annual budget — is now tracking 14 pending complaints. All but one were filed by King, president and founder of the Dustin Inman Society, a nonprofit organization the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a “nativist extremist” group. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle recently filed one against Decatur’s police policies… MORE HERE.

IN-DEPTH: Georgia’s immigration enforcement panel draws scrutiny

photo: Shoebat.com

Decaturish.com

November 14, 2017

Dear Decaturish,

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. The founder of the Dustin Inman Society, DA King, has been committed for many years in helping people understand the truth about immigration and the law. He correctly points out that Georgia has more illegal immigrants than Arizona. I assure you, this is not helping middle-class or low-income Georgians.

As a proud Latina donor and board member of The Dustin Inman Society, I was stunned to read that you passed along the misinformed insult regarding The Dustin Inman Society from Jim Galloway at the AJC, who is using the SPLC as a reliable arbiter of ‘extremism.’ Surely you are aware of the criticism by the Anti Defamation League of the SPLC for its faking a “hate group” crisis and reprimand by the DOJ for “unprofessional and frivolous behavior in immigration court proceedings”? Tactics and accusations by the SPLC are very questionable, a fact the AJC conveniently omits from their reporting. My hope is that Decaturish.com is more dedicated to fairness in journalism than Jim Galloway, the AJC – and the SPLC.

– Maria Silvia Montoya

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Dear Decaturish,

As an immigrant and an advisory board member of the Dustin Inman Society, I find your recent news article ( “Lt. Governor Casey Cagle escalates fight with Decatur using state immigration board”) that curiously repeats the inaccurate AJC/SPLC characterization that the Dustin Inman Society is “extreme” for insisting that our immigration law be enforced 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.

Liberal or not, to blur the lines between legal and illegal, as Jim Galloway and the SPLC have repeatedly done, is a violation of the underlying principles of American justice and an insult to all real immigrants. The Dustin Inman Society, led by Mr. D.A. King is pro-enforcement on immigration. It appears that the Southern Poverty Law Center and Jim Galloway at the AJC take a counter position to that agenda. Is that the case for Decaturish.com too?

Sincerely,

Mary Grabar
Clinton, NY

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Dear Decaturish,

As a Black American conservative and proud member of the Board of Advisors of the Dustin Inman Society, I was saddened to see the 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.

Any news outlet risks damaging its reputation by using the race-baiting and discredited SPLC as an authority on immigration and integrity.

– Inger Eberhart

Kennesaw

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Canada is accepting some of the illegal immigrants who are being required to leave the United States by Trump. Canada gov’t wants more diversity & Trump wants higher wages, so the trade is a win-win. https://t.co/w48wtKGsHZ

— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) November 14, 2017

Getty Images

State Dept.: Visa Lottery Admitted Almost 30,000 People from Terror-Sponsoring Countries since 2007
HERE

Azadeh Shahshahani, leads an early 2017 anti-borders protest in front of  ICE building in Atlanta

Photo: Dustin Inman Society

PRESS ADVISORY
November 13, 2017

Contact: Adelina Nicholls, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, (770) 289-4833, anicholls@glahr.org
Azadeh Shahshahani, Project South, 404-574-0851, azadeh@projectsouth.org
Tania Unzueta, Mijente, 773-387-3186, tania@mijente.net (National Contact)

Organizations in Georgia File Lawsuit Over ICE Secrecy and Tactics, Denounce Potential Expansion of 287(g)

Immigrant and civil rights groups in Georgia and around the country file lawsuit after ICE denies access to information regarding recent mass raids

· WHAT: Organizations in Georgia and around the country are highlighting local ICE enforcement tactics and filing a federal lawsuit against ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for refusing to release information regarding the recent announcement of the what was supposed to be the “largest raid in U.S. history.”

At the same time as the lawsuit is filed, community groups in Georgia and around the country are denouncing the potential expansion of the disastrous 287(g) program.

· WHEN: Tuesday, November 14, 2017, at noon

· WHERE: In front of ICE office – 180 Ted Turner Dr SW, Atlanta, GA 30303

· WHY: In early September after it was announced that ICE would conduct the largest mass raid in U.S. history, Operation Mega, over 200 groups including GLAHR and Project South filed a FOIA requesting information about the planned mass raid, particularly after its supposed cancellation. ICE has refused to make the information public, denying the FOIA request. The lawsuit argues that the public has a right to this information.

By denouncing immigration enforcement activities and tactics and organizing against deportations, groups taking part in these actions are making public some of the information that ICE has refused to release.

Georgia groups also denounce the potential expansion of 287(g) to Bartow and Floyd counties and the Georgia Department of Corrections in light of its disastrous impact on immigrant communities and communities of color in Georgia, leading to an increase in racial profiling and a marked reduction in community safety.

###

The Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights educates, organizes, and empowers Latinos in Georgia to defend and advance their civil and human rights. Established in 2001, GLAHR is a community-based organization that develops statewide grassroots leadership in Latino immigrant communities. Over the past 10 years, GLAHR has established a powerful network of informed and engaged community members through base-building strategies that defend and advance the civil and human rights of Latinos and immigrants living in the Georgia. Visit www.glahr.org for more info.

Georgia #Not1More Coalition Members: Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR), Southerners On New Ground (SONG), Project South, Women Watch Afrika, US Human Rights Network, Atlanta Jobs with Justice, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Georgia WAND, Racial Justice Action Center, Solutions not Punishment Coalition, Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America, Georgia Detention Watch, Jewish Voice For Peace, Hate Free Decatur, Beacon Hill NAACP.

Mijente SC is a digital and grassroots hub for Latinx and Chicanx organizing and movement building. Campaigns combating criminalization, including the detention and deportation of migrants has been at the center of our work. Mijente SC builds from the successes of the #Not1More Deportation campaign, which sought a stop deportations through administrative action. Visit www.mijnete.net for more info. Follow at @conmijente

HERE. 

HERE.

Deal appoints 20 to boards (HERE)

October 27, 2017

Amor Kok, Ed.D., Immigration Enforcement Review Board

Dr. Kok is a licensed professional counselor with the Life Change Group. She sits on the Board of Exceptional Ops in Fayette County and is a member of Fayette FACTOR. Dr. Kok earned a bachelor’s degree in Economic Sciences and Commerce from Stellenbosch University in South Africa, a master’s degree in Guidance and School Counseling from the University of West Georgia and a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership and School Improvement from North Central University. She and her husband, Andre, have three children and reside in Peachtree City.

staticonesquarespace.com

A response to “Ag Secretary Shows a Softer Side on Immigration in Talks With California Farmers” from KQED California

Sigh. It is true that here in Georgia we enacted a tough law (SB529) on the crime of illegal immigration in 2006. And it is true that Sonny Perdue was governor.

It is, however, pre-fab, knee-jerk fiction that “the crackdown on undocumented immigrants worked so well to drive them from the state that Georgia farmers had nobody to pick their crops come harvest. Fruits and vegetables rotted in fields and farmers lost millions.”

The reporter has gotten her anti-enforcement talking points confused with the equally false point used by the media to attack the 2011 E-Verify law put in place in the Peach State.

As “proof” of the amusing but false “rotting in the fields” result of state action on illegal employment in 2006, she has linked to an equally untrue news story from 2011. Sonny Perdue was not governor then. Her error can be forgiven, considering the endless media prattle that without black market labor, America will either starve or see our farm production moved to Mexico.

The problem with Georgia’s crops in 2011 was not a threat of immigration enforcement. It was a devastating drought that we all could see and feel but somehow didn’t make it into most Georgia reporter’s coverage of the illegal immigration law and its effects.

As we said in July, the New York Times covered it like this:

“COLQUITT, Ga. — The heat and the drought are so bad in this southwest corner of Georgia that hogs can barely eat. Corn, a lucrative crop with a notorious thirst, is burning up in fields. Cotton plants are too weak to punch through soil so dry it might as well be pavement.

“Farmers with the money and equipment to irrigate are running wells dry in the unseasonably early and particularly brutal national drought that some say could rival the Dust Bowl days.

“It’s horrible so far,” said Mike Newberry, a Georgia farmer who is trying to grow cotton, corn and peanuts on a thousand acres. “There is no description for what we’ve been through since we started planting corn in March.”

As someone who participated in passing of both the 2006 and 2011 laws, this pro-enforcement American watched as the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and Big Ag et al mounted a frenzied opposition operation to both bills. I watched and shook my head when the Chamber lobbyist told a House committee that the error rate of E-Verify was “50 percent all the way up to 80 percent” – with a straight face. As NRO reported at the time, “the Georgia Agribusiness Council complained in committee that the H-2A farmworker program was just too darn expensive: “The H2A is very good if you can afford it…the H2A visa is a Cadillac system — and not everyone can afford a Cadillac.”

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue photo: zombie.com

When he was governor, Sonny Perdue was as enthusiastic about immigration enforcement as re-election demanded. During his tenure, we found the Mexican government using state buildings and property to process applications for Mexican matricua consular IDs.

The American agriculture industry long ago made the decision not to offer wages that will draw many Americans to farm labor. The goal now is to alter and expand the existing H2A visa process that allows growers to use an unlimited number of legal, temporary foreign farm workers with howls that echo the absurd “rotting in the fields” concept that Americans cannot produce their own food without a repeat of the failed amnesty of 1986.

Nobody should be surprised that Sonny Perdue is leading the Ag amnesty charge.