School choice is a commendable idea worthy of serious consideration. Including illegal aliens in any part of a new state grant isn’t.
The GOP-controlled Georgia Senate recently passed SB 233, a deeply flawed and rushed-up bill titled “The Georgia Promise Scholarship Act” – otherwise known variously as “school choice,” “educational freedom” and “putting parents in charge.”
Watching the rush to passage and the obfuscation of the senate Republicans to push the odiferous measure through reminded this writer of the scenario surrounding immigration legislation in Washington D.C. a decade ago.
During the successful struggle in 2013 to stop that year’s attempt at amnesty for illegal aliens, then-Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions described the “immigration reform” legislation as “a mackerel in the sun.” He pointed out that the bill was meant to be passed into law before too many facts were provided to the American public.
Sessions advised inspection and comprehension of the contents of the most horrible measure. He knew that the light of day would expose the unspoken truth about the “Gang of Eight” amnesty.
“The longer it lays in the sun, the more it smells, as they say about the mackerel” is how Sessions described his reason for the delays he put in front of passage to the New York Times. The amnesty bill eventually failed in the U.S. House because of too much information.
The “school choice” bill that the Georgia senate passed was dropped into the senate hopper on February 22 and cleared the senate just five legislative days later. That unfamiliar odor you may be smelling could well be coming from the Gold Dome and the reek of this Republican-concocted “school choice” legislation after only a week of being out in the open.
The measure is sponsored by Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, and a list of other Republicans, including Senate Pro Tem John Kennedy, R-Macon, and Senate Rules Chairman Matt Brass, R-Newnan. The contents of SB 233 create a new state grant for families of K-12 students to use to pay for private school tuition and other expenses as an alternative to public school education.
The bill contains language that allows students attending private school at taxpayer expense to be otherwise “inadmissible aliens” who have been illegally granted mass “parole” by the Biden administration. That scam was found to be unlawful last week by a federal court in Florida.
According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, parole, even when it is done legally, does not confer lawful border entry status: “An individual who is paroled into the United States has not been formally admitted into the United States for purposes of immigration law” (see “terminology”; “What is parole”).
Legal immigrants do not need parole.
Amazing, but true: the “school choice” bill (SB233) does not exclude illegal alien parents from the administration process. In Dolezal’s bill, the administration of state benefits to eligible families begins only when “parents” file an application to begin the $6000 annual proposed new grant payments for K-12 students to attend private school.
“Parents” includes a ”legal guardian, custodian, or other person with legal authority to act on behalf of the student.” The bill authorizes “parents” to be part of an oversight committee that has authority to decide on eligible expenses in the use of state funds. “Parents” can be paid for unforeseen out-of-pocket expenses.
Apparently to demonstrate they have decided en masse to openly reward and welcome even more “undocumented workers,” every Republican senator voted in favor of final passage. Only six states host more illegal aliens than Georgia.
With the troubled bill now in the House, that body should withhold action until next year so there is ample time to understand the bill’s immigration problems. Then make an educated decision on how to amend it and decide on their own vote – if there is one. Conservatives are watching.
The easy – and obvious – solution is that only U.S. citizens and green card holders should be eligible to apply for or benefit from the proposed “Promise Scholarship.”
Pro-borders voters should step in and do for the Georgia senate’s “school choice” bill what Jeff Sessions did for the failed 2013 amnesty try. Contacting your state Rep and the Speaker asking them to wait until next year to consider the senate’s “school choice’ legislation is a responsible, highly recommended and time sensitive action.
Let this mackerel sit in the sun over the summer.
D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com
