by Republican lawmakers in Georgia could get an opportunity to vote for some control — and transparency — of President Joe Biden’s chaotic tide of illegal migrants into their state.
“Obviously there is no control over the issue,” said Republican Representative Jesse Petrea (R-Savannnah), whose bill is eligible for a House vote if it first gets through the House Rules Committee by Monday.
House Bill 136 “is a very simple public safety law,” he told Breitbart News. “It requires that the Department of Corrections report quarterly on its official website the number of criminally illegal inmates in our Georgia correctional system.”
The critical hurdle is approval from the 32-member committee chaired by Rep. Richard Smith (R-Columbus). The committee decides which bills will be allowed to vote.
People hold up signs as they protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and recent arrests of illegal immigrants in Washington, DC July 16, 2018. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
“I have to get in and out of the house and I have to make it by Monday and I think I can,” Petrea said. “My chances [for passage] in the Senate would be very good,” he said.
A similar bill “was blocked in the Republican House Rules Committee in 2019,” said DA King, founder of the New Dustin Inman Society, which seeks to track and reduce smuggling of illegal migrants into Georgia.
He told Breitbart News:
The resistance from the [GOP] Reason arises from the fact that this law will produce hard, accurate and official figures on at least one monetary cost of illegal immigration in Georgia – namely the cost of jail and detention.
We learned in committee that there are approximately 1,500 criminal aliens in the ICE prison system [confirmatiom of illegal status by the federal agency]. But we know there are more criminal aliens because obviously all criminal aliens in the system don’t have ICE prisoners. I personally think it could be another third.
We also learned that the cost of incarceration is $73 per day. Multiply the $73 per day times the 1,500 ICE inmates, and that’s about $40 million a year that taxpayers pay to incarcerate these undocumented people [and undeported] workforce. This number will obviously increase.
“Democrats will vote against…. [they] shouts ‘Racism!’ and ‘Anti-immigrant!’” King has said whenever the bill is up for discussion
Petrea replied:
Most of the illegal immigrants in our country – even though they are here illegally – are honest and hardworking people… But if we don’t control illegal immigration, we will end up with some people who are not good people… who are here for our families to exploit.
“We’re talking about people who came here illegally and then, after coming here illegally, committed a violent or sexual crime against our people,” he said. Opponents “want to deny that or pretend it’s not — even though they know it is — and I think that’s inappropriate,” he said.
The opposition was “frankly shameful,” he said, adding, “Let’s discuss the issue on the basis of the facts… we have a subset [of migrants] these are violent criminals.”
“Our ability to control illegal immigration is terribly limited,” Petrea said. “It’s a federal government duty, and you and I know they don’t… I think what we can do is release the information about how this is affecting our lives.”
“Rep Petrea deserves credit for his persistence,” King said. At this time, “it’s impossible for us to fully appreciate that [full cost of migration] of human life and misery in Georgia.”
The national polls are putting pressure on national GOP lawmakers to curb illegal migration.
By a factor of more than two to one, Americans agree that companies “should raise wages and try harder to hire Americans, even if it means increasing the price of their products,” according to a YouGov.com poll dated July 2022.
Only 28 percent of registered voters believe immigration has had a positive impact on their local economy, according to an Aug. 12-15 poll of 2,025 registered voters conducted for a migration advocacy group. Just 38 percent say immigration is good for the United States, the poll added.
Migration in Georgia
Business groups want more migrants because it gives them an alternative source of labor as well as many additional tenants and customers.
For example, the Georgia Chamber’s Global Talent Initiative claims: “Through strategic, focused efforts, we can increase the skilled workforce in our state. this will lead to better jobs, increased economic mobility and a more prosperous state.”
The influx of new workers is good for business owners—but also bad for ordinary Americans. For example, each influx of foreign labor causes local wages to drop, housing costs to skyrocket, and communities to suffer. Migration is also pushing more Americans out of work and into drug addiction and homelessness.
Many business advocates claim that despite the huge and growing number of illegal migrants in Georgia, there is a shortage of workers. There are also many Georgians who don’t work: The Federal Reserve says only 62 percent of working-age Georgians have any jobs at all, despite the mass influx of cheap foreign labor. This percentage has fallen sharply from 68 percent in June 2008, making for more poverty and higher social costs.
Despite claims of labor shortages, wages are also falling in many Georgia counties as inflation rises, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. In addition, Georgian companies are free to hire workers from other employers with the promise of more money or better conditions.
Most migrants prefer to live in big cities in the big states like New York City and Los Angeles. This distorted flow of migrants into major population centers minimizes free market pressures on investors and corporations to hire Georgians for construction jobs in the many poor cities outside of Atlanta.
