Results from today's immigration votes in Congress .... Anti-sanctuary mood gains ground


DEAR FRIENDS,

Your phone calls since Monday (in response to our Alert) made a major impression on the Members of the House of Representatives in two votes today on immigration amendments to H.R. 2862 (the Science, the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006 -- "SSJC Appropriations bill").

We won one amendment against cities giving "sanctuary" to illegal aliens.

And we greatly increased the number of votes we got on the other anti-sanctuary amendment over previous times the amendment has been attempted.

Both amendments sought to attack the "sanctuary" policies of many cities which don't allow local law enforcement to detain and report illegal aliens to federal officials. Sanctuary policies are prohibited by federal law, but the Bush Administration has chosen to allow Outlaw Cities to thumb their nose at the law.

Congratulations on the good results, which continue a string of impressive actions by all of you involved citizens.


1. VICTORY ...... Anti-sanctuary amendment passes


Rep. King (R-Iowa)introduced his amendment to H.R. 2862 to put the House clearly on record that it expects the Justice Department to use $1 million to enforce the law and go after cities that refuse to cooperate in removing illegal aliens.

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 267

King amendment to H R 2862
16-Jun-2005, 3:47 PM

REPUBLICANS
YES 208
NO 20
Not Voting 2

DEMOCRATS
YES 10
NO 187
Not Voting 5

INDEPENDENTS
NO 1

TOTALS
YES 218
NO 208
Not Voting 7

You can see how your U.S. Representative voted by using this link:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll267.xml

We will be putting up new faxes for you to send to praise or condemn your Representative's vote. Keep coming back to NumbersUSA.com each day to send faxes as they are put up for you.

King's amendment was a strange one, but is the type that is sometimes used in Congress to send a message to the President and his Administration that Congress has noticed they are NOT enforcing previous law.

It "rescinds/restores" $1 million of Department of Justice funding to be used to enforce 8 USC 1373, the ban on sanctuary policies.

Since Members cannot legislate on an Appropriations bill, they often use this rescind/restore device to tell an agency what to do. Basically, Rep. King's amendment removed $1 million from the bill, and then put it back in. The amendment makes it clear, especially through Rep. King's floor speech, that he wants $1 million to be used by the Department of Justice to actually enforce the ban on sanctuary policies. Executive branch agencies are required to refer to the congressional debate to determine the intent of Congress. Thus, when they see in the text of the Approprations law (assuming it is enacted) an amendment that rescinds/restores a chunk of money, they have to go to the Congressional Record to figure out what that money is supposed to be used for.

The action today is one more important skirmish (that we won) in the battle to make illegal aliens feel unwanted and uncomfortable staying in this country -- and to re-instate the rule of law in these matters.


2. BIG GAINS ...... Tancredo's amendment almost passes this time


Rep. Tancredo (R-CO) has offered his amendment many times in the last couple of years.

It would have more teeth in it than King's amendment and, thus, is more difficult to pass.

Primarily, this amendment would prohibit any city with a sanctuary policy from getting federal funds to reimburse them for some of the costs of providing medical care and other services to illegal aliens.

The idea is that if you don't cooperate in trying to keep illegal aliens out of your community, you can't ask for federal funds to care for them.

Not only the Democratic but the Republican leadership has opposed this amendment in the past because the Bush Adminstration opposes it and because Representatives fear political repercussions if they cut off any funding to any city in their state.

A couple of years ago, Tancredo got a respectable protest showing of 122 votes, but obviously lost in a landslide.

Last year, this amendment picked up steam and got 148 votes.

When he re-introduced it a few weeks ago, some Members showed signs of fatigue with having to debate this issue over and over again, but it picked up another dozen or so votes from last year.

One of the main arguments against the Tancredo anti-sanctuary amendment on the floor today was that he has tried it over and over again and it will never pass. Nobody spoke up in favor of sanctuary policies or to defend cities that illegally harbor illegal aliens.

The amendment picked up around 40 additional votes from just a few weeks ago -- this time hitting 204!

A Tancredo staffer attributed that big jump overwhelmingly to NumbersUSA phone callers this week. The vote a few weeks ago came up so fast that we didn't contact you and didn't get the phones working. But you really reminded Members this week with your phone calls that their constituents are watching.

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 262

Tancredo amendment to H R 2862
16-Jun-2005, 2:45 PM

REPUBLICANS
YES 189
NO 37
Not Voting 4

DEMOCRATS
YES 15
NO 184
Not Voting 3

INDEPENDENT
NO 1

TOTALS
YES 204
NO 222
Not Voting 7

It is difficult for me to convey to you how amazing it is that this amendment would have passed with a change of only 10 votes today.

Commentators and the open-borders lobby for two years have been calling this amendment an example of the radical fringe of the Republican Party that can never gain dominance. But today, 84% of the Republicans voted with Tancredo.

Another great sign is that in the past the Democratic leaders have persuaded our usual Democratic allies that this is a party-line vote and that they can only hurt themselves by voting for such a mean-spirited amendment as this one by crazy Tancredo.

Well, today, 15 of our Democratic allies broke with their party leaders to make sure that their constituents know they don't favor harboring illegal aliens.

Since we routinely get 40 to 50 Democrats voting with us now on non-Tancredo anti-illegal immigration measures, we just need to get another 10 of them on this anti-sanctuary measure and we could pass it next time.

The tactical effect of forcing votes on these amendments has been to force Members to go on record with regard to their position on illegal immigration. In addition, these votes send yet another clear message to the Senate and the Administration of support for enforcement of immigration laws.


3. WE'RE IN ANOTHER BIG BATTLE .... Please be ready for some sustained citizen activism


I know it must seem to you that just a few days ago we were in the middle of that sustained (and successful) campaign to ban driver's licenses for illegal aliens -- or the successful battle to defeat the AgJOBS amnesty.

But it looks like the issue is heating up to a boiling point now and won't cool off until Congress adjourns for Christmas this year.

House GOP leaders announced yesterday that they intend to move major immigration legislation later this year.

To decide what will be in it, they are holding a series of dinners for all GOP House Members to help them work out their wide differences.

Believe me, the open-borders Repulicans like Reps. Flake and Kolbe(AZ) and Cannon (UT) will be doing everything possible to get at least some kind of amnesty onto those dinner tables.

All of you who are represented by a Republican Member of the U.S. House should have gotten an Alert from our Anne Manetas earlier Thursday. It asked you to call your Republican Representatives this week and urge them to go to those dinners with a clear statement about the need to reduce all forms of immigration -- not increase it.

Please keep making those phone calls.

I just returned from the San Francisco area, meeting with NumbersUSA activists there. I think the thing that enthused them more than anything was my report on how fast our NumbersUSA activist base is growing.

Since April, we have added more than 25,000 new citizen activists! They have arrived just in time to throw around a lot of weight inside Congress.

Thanks for sticking with this battle,

ROY