Watch your legislators on immigration

Two issues to watch in the General Assembly: Illegal alien drivers licenses and constitutional official English.

While the national news frenzy is focused on terrorists in America and the varying degrees of determination of presidential candidates to address them, Georgians may want to take some time to pay attention to what happens in the General Assembly in Atlanta. We have our own security problems here and the real powers that dictate government in our state have little interest in allowing pro-enforcement solutions.

Voters should treat the current session as a carefully monitored, two-month campaign for re-election by our state legislators.

Republican-controlled Georgia is issuing drivers licenses, official state photo ID cards and public benefits — including unemployment benefits — to the illegal aliens President Obama has officially promised to not deport under his dubious “deferred action” on enforcement program. About 20,000 illegals in Georgia have benefited.

The powerful business lobby under the Gold Dome has ordered this reward practice to quietly continue. So it will. And much of the Republican base has apparently accepted this as the new normal. But there is now push to at least alter the actual drivers license document given to these “victims of borders” who lack legal immigration status so that it doesn’t look almost exactly like the ones U.S. citizens are given and use as ID when they vote. Or board an airliner. Or rent a car. Or buy explosives.

SB 6, written to exclude all illegal aliens from a Georgia driver’s license, had to be modified to try to safeguard our security and still get past the powerful Georgia Chamber of Commerce lobby by changing the appearance of the card given to illegals so that there is no confusion on the illegal status of the bearer. It would not be a “license” but a “driver privilege card” that is only valid for driving.

As someone who has spent the last decade watching unreported legislative antics under the Gold Dome up-close and in person, this writer urges all voters to pay attention. Maybe get some solid, irreversible commitments from your legislators about whose side they are on.

It is also important to note that the current written test for a Georgia driver’s license is administered in 11 languages in Georgia. With SR 675, legislators will have the opportunity to allow all Georgia voters to answer a ballot question when we vote for president in November 2016 on changing that fact and making English the official constitutional language of government in the Peach State.

Georgia has more illegals than Arizona. On illegal immigration, readers who hope for change in Republican-controlled Georgia should be watching GOP state legislators in the coming election year.

D.A. King
Marietta, Ga.

[King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society and writes often on immigration issues. Twitter @DAKDIS.]