Georgia Gov Race May Pivot on Illegal Alien Imbroglio

If you’re running as an America First candidate in the Republican Party of today, two things will go over about as well as a hiccupping WC Fields at a temperance rally: flagrant hypocrisy coupled with an elitist response. That giant burp you just heard came out of Georgia.

Multi-billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson is running for governor in the Peach State, and he is tethering his campaign to a hardline anti-illegal immigration stance. “I don’t care if you’re a Muslim or a Mongolian, you don’t have the right to force your culture on our country,” Jackson exclaims in a campaign ad. “Too often, criminal illegals commit sick, violent crimes, victimize our children and get away with murder. So here’s my guarantee to them: Do that when I’m governor, and you’ll end up deported or departed. Any questions?”

In keeping with so many Republican candidates over the past decade, Jackson is also claiming the outsider mantle for himself, ala Donald Trump in 2015. “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything,” Jackson proclaims in another ad. “And like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”

It should go without saying that if you are going to don the cloak of purity to a citizenry sick of empty double talk and sketchy self-enrichment, you had better have clean hands yourself.

‘I Don’t Know’ If I Hire Illegal Aliens

Jackson was asked to show his hands on a debate stage on April 27, and it did not go well. It is bad enough that his personal history indicates an extensive record of hiring illegal aliens, but the would-be Georgia MAGA champion’s campaign has taken to decrying his opponents bringing up the issue, a core concern of the Republican grassroots base, as a dirty trick played by the political establishment against him.  

Jackson became entangled in a workman’s compensation lawsuit after one of his landscaping laborers was injured on the job in 2023. The suit revealed Jackson was paying at least one illegal alien to work his Georgia mansion. But it further indicated a persistent practice of either deliberately hiring illegals to tend his lush estate or sheer indifference on the matter.

Jackson “maintained a long-standing workforce of multiple laborers performing landscaping and property maintenance work for decades, including individuals without work authorization who nonetheless performed continuous employment for the employer,” the March 18 filing by a lawyer for plaintiff Facundo Ortega reads, according to a New York Post report released on April 27, the day of the GOP gubernatorial debate. A related deposition claims the landscaping supervisors working Jackson’s mansion did not vet the immigration status of employees. And with good reason – they may not be legal themselves.

“Ortega’s superintendent, Ivan Robolledo, testified that he had never filled out his taxes using a Social Security number – while Robolledo’s lawyer blocked lines of questioning about his client’s immigration status,” the paper relates. “Jackson was deposed twice in the dispute – in October 2023 and January 2024 – and denied knowledge that Robolledo could not lawfully work in the US. Both Ortega and Robolledo acknowledged that they were Mexican nationals in court records.”

Here's a key point: During the deposition, Jackson admitted he never verified the immigration status of “new hires” at his estate using mandatory I-9 forms.

Caught in the crossfire as he was pilloried on the issue during the GOP debate, Jackson flatly contradicted his sworn statement, stating that anyone involved in the hiring process for his landscaping workers followed all appropriate “verification” measures. But the shakiness of his position was palpable as the supposedly staunch anti-illegal immigration crusader struggled on stage to even state he did not hire illegals.

“You don’t have illegals working for you right now?” top primary opponent Lt. Gov. Burt Jones asked him twice to his face. “I don’t know,” came the damning reply. It was the perfect sound bite for a political hit ad. Which was not short in coming. “Rick Jackson: He’s not just hiring illegal aliens. He’s lying to Georgians,” a Jones ad highlighting that quote released immediately after the debate stated.

Mountain of Money in Georgia

This is all damaging enough for Jackson’s feisty anti-immigration outsider campaign. But his response to the predicament he now finds himself in may be even worse. Jackson is attempting to shrug the whole thing off as exaggerated nitpicking by his political rivals. In doing so, he grossly underestimates the deep resentment Republican voters feel for their fellow citizens who hire cheap illegal alien labor rather than employ Americans at a decent wage.

“It’s like a corrupt politician to attack Rick over someone hired by his landscaper,” a spokesperson for Jackson told Fox News. Is there a more tone-deaf response that a billionaire’s campaign could make? How is Rick Jackson expected to be concerned about the legal status of the peasants tending his grounds? It’s hardly an explanation likely to placate MAGA voters in Georgia.

Jackson, of course, does have one huge political advantage working for him: money. The Georgia GOP governor’s primary has been exorbitantly expensive. “The four main GOP candidates reported more than $13 million in combined cash on hand – more than five times the roughly $2.5 million reported by the quartet of top Democrats,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported May 9. “The most eye-popping filing belonged to Jackson, who disclosed he has now contributed roughly $73 million of his own fortune on the race for governor.”

The primary election will be held May 19. Entering the home stretch, Jackson and Jones top the polls. It remains to be seen how much the attacks on Jackson at the April 27 debate will ding him. Jones is endorsed by Trump, while Jackson, who naturally coveted a Trump endorsement, has pivoted to touting his endorsement by aged Georgia political warhorse Newt Gingrich. It will be interesting to see if Jackson can overcome his stumble and triumph. The result will either reaffirm or dispel the notion that being caught on the wrong side of the illegal immigration issue is fatal political poison in Republican politics today.