From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Tuesday 1NOV05 2 p.m.


Phone your Senators again ... this time to support "Byrd Amendment" to strip immigration increases

GOOD NEWS ... SEN. BYRD IS GOING TO CHALLENGE 350,000-A-YEAR IMMIGRATION INCREASE ON FLOOR OF SENATE!

Your 150,000-plus faxes of the last two weeks and your hundreds of phone calls since yesterday are starting to change things in the Senate. We have a chance to stop this madness in the Senate. (It's only a chance at this moment, but yesterday we were told there was no chance at all!)

Call today. Call Wednesday. You've got their attention --drive your point home.

If you didn't make a phone call yet, please do it immediately. If you already made calls, you have a new message to deliver.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE THE CALL

Please use the following link to get phone numbers, talking points and to give us feedback on your call:
http://www.numbersusa.com/phones?ID=4162

We will keep that Phone Action page updated throughout today and tomorrow, so you will have up-to-date info in between any mass emailings we do.

ASK YOUR TWO SENATORS TO VOTE FOR THE BYRD AMENDMENT ON IMMIGRATION REVENUE

When you call the offices of your state's two Senators, tell them that you urge the Senators to vote FOR Sen. Byrd's amendment concerning immigration revenue.

Tell them this amendment is to S. 1932 (the Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005).

Tell them that Sen. Byrd's amendment would strip out provisions that inadvertently were going to add 350,000 permanent foreign workers and family to the U.S. workforce EVERY YEAR.

Then make your points about how we don't need massive new flows of foreign workers (see arguments below).

You can see the phone numbers for your two Senators by clicking on:
www.NumbersUSA.com/myMembers

Our full phone directory is at:
http://www.numbersusa.com/congressinfo

ABOVE IS ALL YOU NEED TO READ TO ACT.

USE THE INFO IN THE REST OF THIS EMAIL FOR ASSISTANCE IN WHAT YOU MIGHT SAY ON THE PHONE.

=====================================

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN SENATE THAT GIVES US SOME HOPE

Yesterday, there appeared no interest anywhere in the Senate to try to amend the Budget Reconciliation bill by stripping the provision that would add up to 350,000 extra permanent green cards a year. Our best friends in the Senate said they didn't want to challenge the provision because they knew they would lose overwhelmingly.

But constituent pressure has been immense against this massive increase in immigration.

As in so many times in the past, our saving angel appears to be Sen. Byrd (D-WV) who at the moment has decided to offer an amendment on the Senate floor (probably on Wednesday) to strip all provisions from the Reconciliation bill that would increase temporary H-1B work visas and permanent immigration green cards.

It appears that Sen. Sessions (R-AL) will lead the Republican support for this bill.

Sen. Byrd's amendment apparently would raise the Judiciary Committee's revenue goal by raising fees on existing work visas and greencards instead of by selling more visas and greencards.

One of the great things about this effort is that it appears that Sen. Byrd is actually getting several Democratic Senators to work closely with him on killing the outlandish provision of selling skilled American jobs in order to raise extra revenue to decrease the federal deficit. The American worker rarely has gotten help against immigration competition from Democratic Senators (other than Byrd and Feinstein of California) in recent years. But this provision cooked up by Microsoft lobbyists and forced into the budget bill by Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Specter (R-PA) may have finally gone so overboard to get more Democrats standing up for working Americans again.

At a time when most of the nation is up in arms because overall immigration is far too high, Sen. Byrd -- by bringing this measure out in the open for debate -- may be able to show his colleagues how shameful it would be for the Senate to increase the importation of foreign workers and their families by another 350,000 a year.

Those are all jobs that would be removed permanently from the American people because these foreign workers are given permanent residency in the U.S.

WHAT TO SAY ON THE PHONE

1. Identify yourself by name and anything else that might give you credibility. Choose as little or much from the rest of these points to say as little or much as you want to say.

2. Say you are calling about the Budget Reconciliation bill on the floor of the Senate right now. (Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005 -- S. 1932)

3. Tell them you want them to vote for the Byrd Amendment to strip provisions to triple the number of permanent jobs offered to foreign workers at a time when 14 million American workers cannot find full-time jobs.

I encourage you when you call to have your computer screen connected to our Hot Topics page on this issue. You will find plenty of arguments and facts from which to choose if you wish to visit a little more with the staffer.

That link is:
http://numbersusa.com/hottopic/H1B.html

4. Point out that many parts of the country are choking on congestion and sprawl -- largely caused by immigration-driven population growth. (Census data show that immigration causes about 87% of U.S. population growth.) Congress is already importing 1 million foreign workers and families each year. It makes no sense to increase that even more.

5. Tell them that you not only want to stop increases in immigration but that you want dramatic REDUCTIONS in the numbers.

CHOOSING FOREIGN WORKERS KEEPS BLACK AMERICAN TECH WORKERS AT THE BACK OF THE OCCUPATIONS BUS

Another argument you may want to make with some Senate offices to open their eyes would be the continuing effect of immigration policy in holding back the upward mobility of many Black Americans who have studied and trained for skilled professions and then can't get a job because industry prefers foreign workers.

I wrote this to you yesterday but want it to be easily available to those of you who want to draw from it in your phone calls today and Wednesday.

During a week of high public honors for Rosa Parks and the opportunities that she helped open for Black Americans, the U.S. Senate is poised to once again send Black American high-tech programmers and engineers to the back of the occupations bus.

A new study by John Templeton and the Coalition for Fair Employment in High Technology reveals that some 70,000 Black Americans with the skills to hold those jobs cannot find a job in the field. Part of the reason is that the field has been flooded by Congress with several hundred thousand foreign workers in recent years.

The U.S. Senate's response at the moment is to make it even harder for Black Americans to obtain those good jobs at the front of the occupations bus by filling the seats with even more foreign workers.

I cannot believe that the United States Senate truly intends to harm skilled Black American workers in this way. But its behavior shows a callous lack of sensitivity and awareness that allows the harm to occur regardless of motive.

The fact is that every corporation clamoring for this massive increase in skilled foreign workers is implicitly stating that it prefers skilled foreign workers to skilled Black Americans. With Rosa Parks lying in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol, will the Senate assist those corporations who seek ways to avoid hiring Black Americans?

The architects of this massive increase in immigration are Sen. Specter (R-PA) and Sen. Kennedy (D-MA). But the ideas came from Microsoft lobbyists who are calling the shots on immigration policy right now. At the same time that Bill Gates was getting media coverage for going to black schools and encouraging the students there to pursue careers in computer programming and other tech fields, Gates' lobbyists were hatching this idea to keep those jobs out of reach of not only Black American students but all American students.

I honestly don't think most Senators realize what they are doing to American workers and American students. But I also don't think they want to know.

Your phone calls today can go along way to wake them up.

THANKS,

-- ROY


This may be a good time for you to make sure that you've let us know all of the areas you are interested in. In order to further customize the type of alerts you receive click here http://www.numbersusa.com/survey?action=longlist

As a NumbersUSA subscriber, you will receive occasional emails about immigration-related opportunities. If you want to increase or reduce the frequency of these emails, click here and choose from Total Activism, Moderate Activism, or Limited Activism at the bottom of your registration form: http://www.numbersusa.com/user

NumbersUSA - relies upon individuals like you to reach its goal of an environmentally sustainable and economically just America.