Business and ethnic lobbies are trying to keep Georgia residents in the dark whenever the federal government is forced to release illegal alien criminals back onto the streets, says D.A. King, founder of a pro-American immigration reform group in the state.

The business groups are using their allies in the state Senate to divert, delay and then defeat a transparency bill — dubbed HG 452 — that has already been approved almost unanimously by Republican and Democratic legislators in the State House, said King, who founded the Dustin Inman Society to push for immigration reform. According to King:

HB 452 is a simple, one page bill that allows and requires the [Georgia Bureau of Investigation] to share information with we the people and Georgia sheriffs that it is already receiving from the feds regarding the release onto the streets of Georgia of convicted, criminal aliens. This list includes murderers, rapists, child molesters and kidnappers.

But “HB 452 is in trouble in the Republican-ruled Georgia state Senate,” King said in a Tuesday statement, as he called for supporters to lobby for the bill:

Yesterday, HB 452 went through the Senate Public Safety Committee on a 4-3 vote. But the Chairman of that committee felt the need to change the language of the bill. His changes were pointless … [But] HB 452 now must go through the Senate Rules Committee before it can see a vote in the full Republican-controlled state Senate. Assuming the Republicans there allow it to pass, because of the needless change in language, it then must go back to the House for passage again.

Allied business groups and ethnic lobbies are vigorously trying to stall the bill, King said. 

The anti-borders lobby was there [at the Monday committee vote] in full force and was allowed to interrupt the hearing. One anti-American opponent of the bill told the room that sharing the info on criminal aliens released onto our streets was “bad for immigrants and bad for small business.” Another made it clear that sharing the information showed a lack of “compassion.” Yet another told the committee that letting your county sheriff know when murderous, criminal aliens were set free into your community it would make you less safe.

One of the leading opposition forces is GALEO, a Latino advocacy group which describes the transparency bill as an “anti-immigrant” bill, saying it allows: 

the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to create a registry of undocumented immigrants who have been detained by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), those who have been arrested, and those that are currently serving or have served time in jail … [it] places a target on undocumented immigrants, and puts them at risk for further discrimination and deportation.

To overcome GALEO’s opposition, King urged his pro-American reform supporters to contact the committee members on Wednesday. “Please call the members of the offices of members of the Senate Rules Committee and leave a polite, short message to ‘Please pass out HB 452 so we can save some American lives in Georgia.'”