Thread: NumbersUSA: Fighting amnesty Tuesday -- update

Fighting amnesty Tuesday -- update

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Tuesday 14DEC2010 Noon EST


PRO-Amnesty Groups Claim 160,000 Phone Calls

Senate Staying In DC Longer To Have Time To Pass Amnesty

TODAY'S UPDATE ON YOUR LONG & VALIANT BATTLE

Yes, your phone calls are still needed -- and today!

202-224-3121

And be sure to visit your www.NumbersUSA.com/actionbuffet

The PRO-amnesty groups have virtually unlimited funds to solicit phone calls and run them through their expensive call services so they can monitor. I am guessing that their claim of 160,000 phone calls may be accurate. I'm sorry to say this in the middle of the holiday season and just before Christmas, but your calls are the only things keeping a couple more Senators from jumping onto the amnesty bandwagon.

See target lists below.

HERE'S THE UPDATE IN BRIEF FOR TODAY:

* Pro-amnesty forces claim they are only one vote short of victory. I really believe this is part of their two-year-long bluff to try to make themselves seem like they have momentum in order to perhaps frighten some Senators to join the "winning" team. Nonetheless, their claim is unnerving. We can't afford to do anything but take it seriously. The pro-amnesty TV network Univision is reporting 4 votes short of 60, with several still Undeclared. That is scary enough.

* Sen. Brown says NO! That's the best news from yesterday. He was the Republican whom the pro-amnesty forces claimed was going to get them to the 60-vote victory mark. (See more details below.) Congratulations to all you activists in Massachusetts.

* Senate isn't going home at end of week. Senate Majority Leader Reid had earlier indicated he wouldn't keep Senators in session until Christmas Eve like he did last year. Typically, Congress adjourns before Thanksgiving to allow the nation to feel safe at least for the month of December. Reid was supposedly going to let the Senate go home at the end of this week. (The newly elected Congress takes over Jan. 5.) If the Congress adjourned at the end of this week, it was going to be hard to shoe-horn the DREAM Act amnesty debate and vote in between all the giant have-to business. But now, it looks like the Senate is staying in session until next week and maybe until next Thursday the 23rd. Bad news for us.

* Amnesty vote unlikely before LATE this week. Yesterday, we were saying the amnesty vote might happen as early as Wednesday (tomorrow). With the extended Senate session, it is difficult to see the amnesty coming up before this weekend and probably next week. That gives the various contingents of illegal-alien students and clergy coalitions a lot more time to lay guilt trips on Undeclared and squishy-NO Senators back home. More bad news.

* We have only one chance instead of two to defeat on cloture votes. Previously, Sen. Reid had to get 60 votes to pass cloture to START debate on the DREAM amnesty. If we lost that one, we would have another chance to keep him from getting 60 votes to pass cloture to STOP debate and have a final vote. That has changed. Because the House has sent over its own DREAM amnesty, Reid can bring it up for debate at any time WITHOUT a cloture vote. We expect that he will immediately file cloture to STOP the debate even before it begins. Once he does that, he can't hold the cloture vote until two days later. This isn't a big deal, but the change does disadvantage us somewhat from our ability to kill the amnesty.

TOP SENATE TARGETS

UNDECLARED BUT LEANING YES

202-224-3121

ALASKA
Sen. Murkowski (R)
No statement on her web site and no media quotes. Daily Kos says multiple whips counts have her as a likely supporter. Most of the PRO-amnesty groups are counting her as a YES.

LOUISIANA
Sen. Landrieu (D)
She indicates that the House bill needs to be considered because it has some changes (suggesting that she will claim the House bill closes loopholes). She talks of major concern for the "children."

MICHIGAN
Sen. Stabenow (D)
She was a certain YES on cloture to start debate. But she has not indicated whether she would vote YES to end debate and thus pass the bill. She is up for re-election in 2012 in a state that turned sharply Republican in the 2010 elections. Now (as noted above), we are facing only a cloture vote to END debate. PRO-amnesty forces count her as theirs. But I don't think she has to be at all.

MISSOURI
Sen. McCaskill (D)
McCaskill has a wide-ranging interview on her web site. Appears to be leaning toward yes but its non-committal. She says (1) we have never punished children, (2) this is a different bill than the one I voted against, and (3) if this bill is more narrowly drawn, I will take a serious look at it. She needs to be reminded that any amnesty support will certainly show up when she tries to be re-elected in 2012 by a state that went sharply Republican in the 2010 elections.

NORTH DAKOTA
Sen. Dorgan (D)
He was a certain YES on cloture to start debate. But he has not indicated whether he would vote YES to end debate and thus pass the bill. Now (as noted above), we are facing only a cloture vote to END debate. In the past, he has been one of our most reliable NO votes on amnesty. But he is retiring and acting squishy. PRO-amnesty forces are counting him as theirs. I don't think that has to be true at all.

UNDECLARED BUT LEANING NO

202-224-3121

These Senators' staff continually tell our members that they will vote NO. But for some reason, all media and political whip counts are calling them Undeclared. Thank them and encourage them to go ahead and publicly declare themselves a NO.

MONTANA
Sen. Baucus (D)

NORTH CAROLINA
Sen. Hagan (D)

NORTH DAKOTA
Sen. Conrad (D)

UNDECLARED AND TOTALLY UNKNOWN

202-224-3121

WEST VIRGINIA
Sen. Manchin (D)

DECLARED NO BUT OF SOME CONCERN

202-224-3121

MAINE
Sen. Collins (R)

OHIO
Sen. Voinovich (R)

202-224-3121

Please make those calls. We can win this, like we have beaten every amnesty in every year since 2000.

KEY MESSAGES IN ALL PHONE CALLS TO SENATORS WHO ARE SYMPATHETIC TO THE DREAM ACT POSTER CHILDREN

Keep this in mind about Senators who are Undeclared, or who say they will vote NO but are squishy, or who say they will vote YES but are potentially movable to NO:

They all are sympathetic to the poster children of the DREAM Act -- those are the minority of potential amnesty recipients who were brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were infants or toddlers and who are now good high school or college students.

You will gain nothing with the Senators we are trying to reach today by being negative about these students.

Instead, you have to approach these Senators on the basis of practicality. Perhaps the poster children do deserve consideration in the future but not before the enforcement is put in place to stop future illegal immigration. Your argument is that it is not possible in this rushed Lame Duck session to create and pass an amnesty that is limited to the deserving and which will stop future unfair illegal labor competition to unemployed Americans.

My thought is that it would be helpful today for every phone call to make the same pitches to Senators who are sympathetic to the poster children of the DREAM amnesty:

* No matter how sympathetic these students may be, you can't give out another mass amnesty without fixing the weak enforcement that allowed their parents to bring them here and keep them here for years and years. DREAM has ZERO enforcement.

* The DREAM Act amnesty includes no requirement that jobs be shut off to the millions of future illegal aliens who will bring THEIR children and put them in this exact same predicament that DREAM puports to resolve. It is totally irresponsible to the 22 million unemployed Americans to give out a big amnesty without requiring mandatory verification to keep illegal aliens from holding jobs.

SENS. BROWN (R-Mass.) & LeMEIUX (R-Fla.) SHOW THE PRACTICAL RESPONSE TO EMOTIONAL APPEALS

Perhaps no two Senators have been subjected to as much emotional pressure to bow to amnesty. The PRO-amnesty forces have bet the farm on moving these two because of special political circumstances in their states.

In its report of Sen. Brown's declaration of opposition to DREAM amnesty yesterday, the Associated Press reported:

Brown's remarks came as a coalition of educators, religious leaders and immigrant advocates made a last ditch appeal Monday asking him to support the proposal. Brown also had been a target of a national campaign by advocates.

For months, supporters of the bill and illegal immigrant college students, who call themselves "DREAMers," have staged sit-ins, rallies and marches outside Brown's office. Students have left hundreds of signed letters from supporters and young immigrants who said they would enlisted in the military if the bill passed.

Imagine if you were under that kind of emotional pressure? Imagine having all those clergy suggesting that you are inhumane, anti-Hispanic and even immoral if you don't legalize these young adult illegal aliens!

I have to tip my hat to Sen Brown for having the confidence of his convictions and a sense of that morality of standing up for 22 million Americans who want a full-time job but who can't find one. He once again declared his opposition to the DREAM amnesty at a Salvation Army charity event in downtown Boston!!!!!

Sen. LeMieux has been under similar pressures. After the Senate voted to postpone the amnesty vote last week, he put out this statement:

I am very sympathetic to the young people who entered our country illegally by no fault of their own, but I will not support consideration of the DREAM Act without addressing border security. I recently visited the US-Mexico border in Arizona and witnessed the progress toward securing the border. Fully funding and replicating our security successes across the border would allow us to address the DREAM act. However, we are still far from achieving a level of border security that is acceptable to me or to the American people.

I would have liked to see Sen. LeMieux set a higher standard of pre-conditions, including mandatory workplace verification and an end to chain migration, but his standard works just fine for the few weeks until he leaves office.

This is the line in the sand you are asking every Senator to draw . . .

. . . . . The line is that whatever one's feelings about the merits of some illegal aliens for an amnesty, no amnesty should be even talked about until the border is secure against continued mass illegal immigration and our jobs are secure from illegal aliens being able to take them from Americans.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR PICKING UP THAT PHONE ONCE AGAIN,

Roy Beck, President NumbersUSA

received by e-mail from NumbersUSA / Tue, Dec 14, 2010 1:41 pm
Numbers USA
1601 N. Kent Street
Suite 1100
Arlington, VA 22209

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Tuesday 14DEC2010 Noon EST


PRO-Amnesty Groups Claim 160,000 Phone Calls

Senate Staying In DC Longer To Have Time To Pass Amnesty

TODAY'S UPDATE ON YOUR LONG & VALIANT BATTLE

Yes, your phone calls are still needed -- and today!

202-224-3121

And be sure to visit your www.NumbersUSA.com/actionbuffet

The PRO-amnesty groups have virtually unlimited funds to solicit phone calls and run them through their expensive call services so they can monitor. I am guessing that their claim of 160,000 phone calls may be accurate. I'm sorry to say this in the middle of the holiday season and just before Christmas, but your calls are the only things keeping a couple more Senators from jumping onto the amnesty bandwagon.

See target lists below.

HERE'S THE UPDATE IN BRIEF FOR TODAY:

* Pro-amnesty forces claim they are only one vote short of victory. I really believe this is part of their two-year-long bluff to try to make themselves seem like they have momentum in order to perhaps frighten some Senators to join the "winning" team. Nonetheless, their claim is unnerving. We can't afford to do anything but take it seriously. The pro-amnesty TV network Univision is reporting 4 votes short of 60, with several still Undeclared. That is scary enough.

* Sen. Brown says NO! That's the best news from yesterday. He was the Republican whom the pro-amnesty forces claimed was going to get them to the 60-vote victory mark. (See more details below.) Congratulations to all you activists in Massachusetts.

* Senate isn't going home at end of week. Senate Majority Leader Reid had earlier indicated he wouldn't keep Senators in session until Christmas Eve like he did last year. Typically, Congress adjourns before Thanksgiving to allow the nation to feel safe at least for the month of December. Reid was supposedly going to let the Senate go home at the end of this week. (The newly elected Congress takes over Jan. 5.) If the Congress adjourned at the end of this week, it was going to be hard to shoe-horn the DREAM Act amnesty debate and vote in between all the giant have-to business. But now, it looks like the Senate is staying in session until next week and maybe until next Thursday the 23rd. Bad news for us.

* Amnesty vote unlikely before LATE this week. Yesterday, we were saying the amnesty vote might happen as early as Wednesday (tomorrow). With the extended Senate session, it is difficult to see the amnesty coming up before this weekend and probably next week. That gives the various contingents of illegal-alien students and clergy coalitions a lot more time to lay guilt trips on Undeclared and squishy-NO Senators back home. More bad news.

* We have only one chance instead of two to defeat on cloture votes. Previously, Sen. Reid had to get 60 votes to pass cloture to START debate on the DREAM amnesty. If we lost that one, we would have another chance to keep him from getting 60 votes to pass cloture to STOP debate and have a final vote. That has changed. Because the House has sent over its own DREAM amnesty, Reid can bring it up for debate at any time WITHOUT a cloture vote. We expect that he will immediately file cloture to STOP the debate even before it begins. Once he does that, he can't hold the cloture vote until two days later. This isn't a big deal, but the change does disadvantage us somewhat from our ability to kill the amnesty.

TOP SENATE TARGETS

UNDECLARED BUT LEANING YES

202-224-3121

ALASKA
Sen. Murkowski (R)
No statement on her web site and no media quotes. Daily Kos says multiple whips counts have her as a likely supporter. Most of the PRO-amnesty groups are counting her as a YES.

LOUISIANA
Sen. Landrieu (D)
She indicates that the House bill needs to be considered because it has some changes (suggesting that she will claim the House bill closes loopholes). She talks of major concern for the "children."

MICHIGAN
Sen. Stabenow (D)
She was a certain YES on cloture to start debate. But she has not indicated whether she would vote YES to end debate and thus pass the bill. She is up for re-election in 2012 in a state that turned sharply Republican in the 2010 elections. Now (as noted above), we are facing only a cloture vote to END debate. PRO-amnesty forces count her as theirs. But I don't think she has to be at all.

MISSOURI
Sen. McCaskill (D)
McCaskill has a wide-ranging interview on her web site. Appears to be leaning toward yes but its non-committal. She says (1) we have never punished children, (2) this is a different bill than the one I voted against, and (3) if this bill is more narrowly drawn, I will take a serious look at it. She needs to be reminded that any amnesty support will certainly show up when she tries to be re-elected in 2012 by a state that went sharply Republican in the 2010 elections.

NORTH DAKOTA
Sen. Dorgan (D)
He was a certain YES on cloture to start debate. But he has not indicated whether he would vote YES to end debate and thus pass the bill. Now (as noted above), we are facing only a cloture vote to END debate. In the past, he has been one of our most reliable NO votes on amnesty. But he is retiring and acting squishy. PRO-amnesty forces are counting him as theirs. I don't think that has to be true at all.

UNDECLARED BUT LEANING NO

202-224-3121

These Senators' staff continually tell our members that they will vote NO. But for some reason, all media and political whip counts are calling them Undeclared. Thank them and encourage them to go ahead and publicly declare themselves a NO.

MONTANA
Sen. Baucus (D)

NORTH CAROLINA
Sen. Hagan (D)

NORTH DAKOTA
Sen. Conrad (D)

UNDECLARED AND TOTALLY UNKNOWN

202-224-3121

WEST VIRGINIA
Sen. Manchin (D)

DECLARED NO BUT OF SOME CONCERN

202-224-3121

MAINE
Sen. Collins (R)

OHIO
Sen. Voinovich (R)

202-224-3121

Please make those calls. We can win this, like we have beaten every amnesty in every year since 2000.

KEY MESSAGES IN ALL PHONE CALLS TO SENATORS WHO ARE SYMPATHETIC TO THE DREAM ACT POSTER CHILDREN

Keep this in mind about Senators who are Undeclared, or who say they will vote NO but are squishy, or who say they will vote YES but are potentially movable to NO:

They all are sympathetic to the poster children of the DREAM Act -- those are the minority of potential amnesty recipients who were brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were infants or toddlers and who are now good high school or college students.

You will gain nothing with the Senators we are trying to reach today by being negative about these students.

Instead, you have to approach these Senators on the basis of practicality. Perhaps the poster children do deserve consideration in the future but not before the enforcement is put in place to stop future illegal immigration. Your argument is that it is not possible in this rushed Lame Duck session to create and pass an amnesty that is limited to the deserving and which will stop future unfair illegal labor competition to unemployed Americans.

My thought is that it would be helpful today for every phone call to make the same pitches to Senators who are sympathetic to the poster children of the DREAM amnesty:

* No matter how sympathetic these students may be, you can't give out another mass amnesty without fixing the weak enforcement that allowed their parents to bring them here and keep them here for years and years. DREAM has ZERO enforcement.

* The DREAM Act amnesty includes no requirement that jobs be shut off to the millions of future illegal aliens who will bring THEIR children and put them in this exact same predicament that DREAM puports to resolve. It is totally irresponsible to the 22 million unemployed Americans to give out a big amnesty without requiring mandatory verification to keep illegal aliens from holding jobs.

SENS. BROWN (R-Mass.) & LeMEIUX (R-Fla.) SHOW THE PRACTICAL RESPONSE TO EMOTIONAL APPEALS

Perhaps no two Senators have been subjected to as much emotional pressure to bow to amnesty. The PRO-amnesty forces have bet the farm on moving these two because of special political circumstances in their states.

In its report of Sen. Brown's declaration of opposition to DREAM amnesty yesterday, the Associated Press reported:

Brown's remarks came as a coalition of educators, religious leaders and immigrant advocates made a last ditch appeal Monday asking him to support the proposal. Brown also had been a target of a national campaign by advocates.

For months, supporters of the bill and illegal immigrant college students, who call themselves "DREAMers," have staged sit-ins, rallies and marches outside Brown's office. Students have left hundreds of signed letters from supporters and young immigrants who said they would enlisted in the military if the bill passed.

Imagine if you were under that kind of emotional pressure? Imagine having all those clergy suggesting that you are inhumane, anti-Hispanic and even immoral if you don't legalize these young adult illegal aliens!

I have to tip my hat to Sen Brown for having the confidence of his convictions and a sense of that morality of standing up for 22 million Americans who want a full-time job but who can't find one. He once again declared his opposition to the DREAM amnesty at a Salvation Army charity event in downtown Boston!!!!!

Sen. LeMieux has been under similar pressures. After the Senate voted to postpone the amnesty vote last week, he put out this statement:

I am very sympathetic to the young people who entered our country illegally by no fault of their own, but I will not support consideration of the DREAM Act without addressing border security. I recently visited the US-Mexico border in Arizona and witnessed the progress toward securing the border. Fully funding and replicating our security successes across the border would allow us to address the DREAM act. However, we are still far from achieving a level of border security that is acceptable to me or to the American people.

I would have liked to see Sen. LeMieux set a higher standard of pre-conditions, including mandatory workplace verification and an end to chain migration, but his standard works just fine for the few weeks until he leaves office.

This is the line in the sand you are asking every Senator to draw . . .

. . . . . The line is that whatever one's feelings about the merits of some illegal aliens for an amnesty, no amnesty should be even talked about until the border is secure against continued mass illegal immigration and our jobs are secure from illegal aliens being able to take them from Americans.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR PICKING UP THAT PHONE ONCE AGAIN,

Roy Beck, President NumbersUSA

received by e-mail from NumbersUSA / Tue, Dec 14, 2010 6:05 pm

Numbers USA
1601 N. Kent Street
Suite 1100
Arlington, VA 22209