Transparency Watch: Atlanta puts a hefty price tag on Muslim activists' pay records

(The Center Square) – In the last year of the Biden administration, millions of dollars flowed from the city of Atlanta to nonprofits so they could aid migrants pouring through U.S. borders. A quarter-million dollars went to a Chicago-based Islamic activist organization that was raising money for Gaza at the time.

The Center Square wanted to know what, specifically, that group and others spent their grant money on. But for months, requests to the office of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, filed under the Georgia Open Records Act, have been answered with hefty price quotes ranging from hundreds to more than a thousand dollars.

The city wanted almost $1,400 to view records on a list of nonprofits that collectively received at least $5.7 million. The mayor’s office said pulling receipts, invoices and other backup records would require nine days of labor.

An open borders critic called the fee demands by Dickens’s office "obstruction."

"It sounds like the city of Atlanta has not been doing much oversight of its own, if it has to spend so much time tracking down the records that you’re requesting," said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. "It also sounds like they do not welcome the scrutiny."

That means taxpayers not only paid for staff to generate the migrant assistance records in the first place, but someone has to pay again to check how well the city and its contractors managed the money.

Across the country, high fees for producing records have become a common deterrent to prying eyes, according to a new report by the University of Florida journalism school’s Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, which examined today’s precarious media climate.

"In an investigation published in January, The Center Square raised questions about Atlanta’s payments to a nonprofit called the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, or IMAN. Payment records available through the city’s online Open Checkbook show the group received five installments from August 2024 to January 2025 totaling $250,000."

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Former Secretary of Homeland Security Alex Mayorkas should be in prison along with a lot of other people,probably including Atlanta Mayor Dickens.

In Georgia, we have several Muslims running for district, state, and local offices. Many of them are recent of arrivals and our tax dollars paid for bringing them here.

More below:

“Since January, The Center Square has sought access to the receipts, invoices, vouchers, payment requests or other records turned in by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network and other NGOs. Other Atlanta recipients included Hispanic Alliance ($2 million), Inspiritus ($1.9 million), International Rescue Committee ($838,000), Latin American Association ($283,500) and Migrant Equity Southeast ($245,500), according to Open Checkbook records.

After the mayor’s office put a $1,368 price on backup records of seven nonprofits, The Center Square narrowed the request, but estimates for far fewer records still came back at hundreds of dollars.

For backup records on just two of the nonprofits, IMAN and Hispanic Alliance, Dickens’s office wanted $456.

Just to view receipts on the Inner-City Muslim Action Network alone, and obtain an accounting of how much money in federal grants Atlanta received and how it distributed the funds, Dickens’s office said the price would be $760. That was later revised down to $380 after The Center Square questioned the cost.

The price includes reviewing the records for any exempt information and making redactions. However it’s unclear if there are any redactions to make because the records haven’t been pored over yet by the mayor’s office, so the actual cost could end up being far less. The records are held by the Mayor’s Office of International and Immigrant Affairs.

“It’s hard to imagine what any privacy considerations would be,” Vaughan, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said. “This is public money, and the public has a right to know how it was spent. Particularly if there are questions about support of terrorists or terror-linked organizations, like Hamas.””

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