May 15, 2019
To begin with, Judge Dax Lopez is an exemplary judge who has served DeKalb County with honor and distinction for many years now and has been re-elected twice by the people of DeKalb County. He also has the only Spanish language diversion drug court in the state of Georgia.
He is well respected from many other judges, lawyers, elected officials on both sides of the aisle, and of course strongly respected within the communities he serves. Judge Lopez had the support of both Georgia U.S. Senators Isakson and Perdue, until U.S. Sen. Perdue removed his support for similar racist attacks from anti-immigrant groups. In fact, U.S. Senator Isakson still supports Judge Lopez being considered for the current short list on the Judicial Nominating Committee for Governor Kemp. Judge Dax Lopez is a stellar judge with an impeccable history of service that should be considered for other nominations.
Secondly, GALEO has been a steadfast and long-serving non-partisan organization in Georgia promoting greater civic engagement and leadership development of the Latino community in our state. We have graduated over 600 people from our nationally recognized grassroots leadership program, the GALEO Institute for Leadership. The Latino electorate has grown from a mere 10,000 in 2003 to well over 240,000 in 2016; furthermore, the Latino electorate is more engaged and outperforms the national Latino voter participation rates in many jurisdictions across the state. Our board members have been named to serve our nation and state from bipartisan administrations: President Bush, President Obama, Governor Perdue and Governor Deal. Lastly, in partnership with then Secretary of State Brian Kemp, USCIS and many nonprofit organizations, we have been able to assist over 35,000 new American voters at naturalization ceremonies become registered voters at the time they become U.S. citizens in the past few years. GALEO’s work has been lauded both nationally and statewide for our commitment to our democracy and encouraging of the Latino community to become more engaged.
Lastly, the issue at heart in the opposition is our position on immigration reform. To be clear, our position has been consistent with positions of both the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Our position for a movement forward from our current broken immigration system has been mainstream and not considered at all on the extreme. Sheriff Neil Warren’s views on immigration are aligned with more extreme anti-immigrant views and would work to alienate and create fear, which actually diminish public safety in Cobb County.
With all of this, we do need you to raise your voice to help support an exemplary judge who deserves to continue to serve our state in higher capacities to ensure our state the benefit of his insight, perspective and leadership. Please join us in supporting Judge Dax Lopez.
Please take a moment to sign the sign-on letter generated by FWD.us staff in Georgia in support of Judge Lopez see link below.
Thank you!
Jerry Gonzalez
Executive DirectorGALEO & GALEO Latino Community Development Fund
| Sign-on Letter by Fwd.us WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT! Please sign this sign-on letter and send your own as well. Judge Dax Lopez is on a short list of Judges eligible to be appointed to the Stone Mountain Judicial Court by Governor Brian Kemp. In 2016, Judge Lopez was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia by President Obama. Unfortunately, extreme right-wing and anti-immigrant groups were successful in derailing Judge Lopez’ nomination by painting him as an “extremist anti-borders judge” for his prior service on the board of GALEO. These same groups have begun to attack Judge DaxLopez’ 2019 nomination and are successfully encouraging anti-immigrant activists to write letters against his nomination. In response, we are asking community leaders that know and support Judge Dax Lopez to write their own letters of support or to sign-on to the letter below using this google form. Please sign-on by COB Friday, May 17th. We cannot allow extremist anti-immigrant people continue to tarnish both Judge Lopez & GALEO. Sign onto this letter and share with others. |
Principles of Immigration Reform
Statement from Judge Dax Lopez
01/22/16: HNBA DISMAYED BY GEORGIA SENATOR’S WITHDRAWAL OF SUPPORT FOR LATINO JUDGE
01/28/16: Atlanta Jewish Times: Our View: Perdue’s Betrayal
05/01/16: Letter to Georgia Trend Magazine: Latinos won’t forget U.S. Sen. Perdue’s blocking of Judge Lopez
