The previous issue of The Gwinnett Gazette detailed how, almost 18 months after Georgia enacted one of the toughest illegal immigration laws in the nation, neither the county nor a single Gwinnett city has fully complied with the new requirements regarding eligibility for public benefits.

The article stirred a flurry of emails to the County Commission, coverage in the local paper and unofficial responses from the county attorney and a couple of Commissioners. But it wasn’t the response that a large majority of Gwinnett residents wanted to hear.

In an email to a Gwinnett Gazette reader, Chairman Charles Bannister essentially dismissed my article as the uninformed rant of a political gadfly. That same reader received a slightly better response from Commissioner Lorraine Green, who lauded the county’s current license screening procedure.

The most interesting response, however, came indirectly from County Attorney Karen Thomas. According to Thomas, “…Gwinnett County does not issue business licenses but imposes an occupation tax.” It is this difference, Thomas infers, that exempts the county from the requirements of the “Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act” regarding verification of eligibility prior to issuing a “public benefit.”

It is a distinction without a difference… pure semantics. In the coming weeks, I will explain why the county is in violation of state law, along with every municipality in the county.

What should concern you, in the meantime, is that the county’s initial response was to offer reasons why they will not prevent illegal immigrants from receiving county business licenses and/or require county employers to verify their workers!