Short version: The Georgia Chamber of Commerce is in full control of the state. Ag is biggest industry. This bill of ours is now pending join the Super-Majority GOP Georgia state Senate where there are 38 Republicans out of a total 56 Senators. Only 11 have co-sponsored. The Georgia media has created a cone of silence and most voters don’t even know we are rewarding illegal aliens w a DL – much less that there exists a bill to end that lunacy. The bill ends the practice for ALL illegals in the state, so is court-proof. Georgia has mote victims of borders than Arizona and the Republican Governor has used the estimate of “$2.4 billion” as the annual cost of the crime of illegal immigration here. Never the less, we are now watching a bill that would grant in-state tuition to illegals and as the bill to keep illegals from a DL is treated like Kryptonite by the “conservative” GOP state Senate.
From the Marietta Daily Journal
Around Town
November 18, 2014
REPUBLICAN leaders in Washington are mulling how best to respond to President Obama’s bare-knuckle threat to grant legal status to millions of illegal aliens in coming days. But in Georgia, a bill was pre-filed in the state Legislature on Monday that would prevent any of those newly amnestied from obtaining drivers’ licenses from the state.
“The Georgia Road Safety and Driver’s License Integrity Act,” now known as SB 6, was sponsored by state Sen. Josh McKoon (R-Columbus), with substantial input from MDJ immigration columnist D.A. King of east Cobb.
Back in June 2012, the Obama administration announced that illegals who were brought here before their 16th birthday and were under the age of 31 could request that their cases be deferred for two years, subject to renewal. He now is threatening to defer action on their cases and those of many others, which could result in millions (including several hundred thousand illegal aliens in Georgia) being rewarded with federal work permits and Social Security numbers. Under current law, that would make the “deferred action illegals” eligible for Georgia drivers’ licenses and other public benefits, even though they are still illegal aliens and would not have legal status.
“Previously, Georgia law restricted illegal aliens from getting a driver’s license,” said McKoon. “When the president created the ‘deferred action status’ class, he deliberately created a loophole to make millions of illegal aliens eligible for Georgia driver’s licenses and other public benefits. Senate Bill 6 will eliminate that loophole in Georgia.”
In addition, the bill would:
Require aliens applying for a temporary driver’s license to submit their fingerprints with the application;
Require aliens swear an affidavit that they are not the recipient of deferred deportation status, with a penalty of up to $1,000 for false swearing;
Would allow the impoundment for 60 days of any vehicle driven by an unlicensed driver (with exclusions for cases of expired licenses and drivers 15 years old or younger); and
Would require the state to take part in the federal E-Verify “Ride” Program, an enhancement to the E-Verify program that verifies the validity of driver’s license info by matching the data entered by employers against participating state motor vehicle department records.
Not surprisingly, considering he helped write it, King is upbeat on the bill.
“It will save a lot of lives if it is put into law and then actually enforced,” he said. “We should be more like Mexico, where illegal aliens cannot get a driver’s license.”
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U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) declined to comment on the particulars of the bill, but said he supports its goal.
“All you have to look at is what happened in Oregon last week in the election,” he said after his Gold Dome press conference Monday, at which he announced his candidacy for a third term. “Oregon voted 2-to-1 not to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. I think that’s the sentiment of the American people.”
Oregonians voted 66-34 against the proposal (roughly the same margin by which Cobb voters rejected the TSPLOST in 2012, for what it’s worth), even though pro-illegals groups outspent opponents by a 10-to-1 margin. The measure failed in every county there but one.
Echoing Isakson on the question was Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.
“Whenever the public gets that sort of clear-cut, black-and-white issue for tougher controls — even in Oregon, when they’re legalizing dope — they support them,” Krikorian said. “It really highlights how this issue is not a Republican-liberal issue like, say, taxes and abortion, but an up-down issue, elites versus the public.”
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Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – Gold Dome bill would block licenses for illegals