From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Tuesday 25JAN2011 10:30 p.m. EST

Response to immigration in State of Union -- send new faxes

PRES. OBAMA'S IMMIGRATION COMMENTS WERE INSULT TO AMERICAN STUDENTS . . .

. . . AND CALLOUS DISREGARD FOR AMERICA'S UNEMPLOYED

Below is my overall assessment of the President's immigration-related comments in his State of the Union address.

Action 1 Click here to send NEW faxes to your 3 Members of Congress about your reaction to the President's approach to immigration and jobs.

http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=12666

These are not the faxes you sent earlier today.

After you send these new faxes, please go to your Action Buffet and:

(A) Send the new fax to the White House.

(B) Many of you also have VERY important faxes to send to your STATE legislators on extremely important immigration legislation in front of state legislatures NOW.

The rest of this alert are excerpts from my live blog tonight. Read the entire live blog at:

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusab ... y-connect-

MY OVERALL ASSESSMENT OF THE IMMIGRATION PART OF THE ADDRESS

10:10 p.m. -- FINAL COMMENTS FROM ME FOR TONIGHT

Pres. Obama spent most of the speech talking about preventing U.S. jobs from going overseas to be done by foreign workers there, and then incongruously argued for increasing the number of foreign workers to take the scarce jobs we keep in the U.S.

Though mostly ambiguous, his statements on immigration seemed to put illegal foreign workers and foreign students first while keeping unemployed Americans in the shadows.

On trade, he said he would "only sign deals that keep faith with American workers, and promote American jobs" and yet on immigration policy he failed American workers, declining to ask for reductions in immigration even though 24 million American and legal immigrants can't find a full-time job. And he declined to ask for mandatory E-Verify to put millions of them back to work by opening up 7 million jobs held by illegal foreign workers. Instead, he vaguely asked for work permits for illegal aliens and an increase in foreign workers.

The disappointment over his comments was tempered by the lukewarm response from Members of Congress who seemed in no mood to follow his unpopular suggestions.

CONGRESSIONAL AUDIENCE RESPONSE TO THE IMMIGRATION COMMENTS

9:39 p.m. -- Well, now he's made the immigration statement and it was not a crowd pleaser. Very good sign.

It felt like there were a couple of major applause lines in these paragraphs, but there was no or very little response.

Here is what he said and how the folks reacted:

"One last point about education. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of students excelling in our schools who are not American citizens. Some are the children of undocumented workers, who had nothing to do with the actions of their parents. They grew up as Americans and pledge allegiance to our flag, and yet live every day with the threat of deportation. Others come here from abroad to study in our colleges and universities. But as soon as they obtain advanced degrees, we send them back home to compete against us. It makes no sense."

I feared we'd get a standing ovation on the "It makes no sense." But there was absolute silence in the Chamber!

In fact, "It makes no sense" was one of his repetitive lines through the speech and it usually got applause. But not this one. Maybe Congress has a little more interest in our American kids graduating from college than does the White House.,

"Now, I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration. I am prepared to work with Republicans and Democrats to protect our borders, enforce our laws and address the millions of undocumented workers who are now living in the shadows. "

Finally, some response. It was one of those slow rolling applauses that lasted a little while and then got quite a few people to stand. But a very short ovation.

So what were they applauding? Protect our borders? Enforce our laws? I hope so. If they were applauding "address the millions of undocumented workers who are now living in the shadows," they were applauding a very ambiguous generalization.

It is a very good sign that Obama KNOWS how extremely unpopular "amnesty" is. So, he didn't dare use the word. But note that he also didn't dare use the words "DREAM Act" or "legalization" or "comprehensive immigration reform."

He seemed afraid to even use the word "REFORM."

I find all that pretty delicious.

"I know that debate will be difficult and take time. But tonight, lets agree to make that effort. And lets stop expelling talented, responsible young people who can staff our research labs, start new businesses, and further enrich this nation. "

Well, here was the crazy talk that all those American kids who have graduated recently and are unemployed or underemployed don't deserve protection but instead should be forced to compete with tens of thousands of foreign students for these jobs.

There was a smattering of applause, but I saw NO standing. Nice!

As bad as the language of the President's text -- and as disappointing that he would not put unemployed Americans first by reducing immigration -- I am reassured that this section of the speech basically bombed.

A FEW MORE COMMENTS

9:28 p.m. -- What is the point of innovatiojn to produce jobs IN AMERICA and not OVERSEAS if we give many of those jobs to workers who we allow into our country from overseas?

Here's what he just said:

"Maintaining our leadership in research and technology is crucial to Americas success. But if we want to win the future if we want innovation to produce jobs in America and not overseas then we also have to win the race to educate our kids."

It is hard to take this statement seriously when we know that later in this speech he will call for us to keep foreign students when they graduate in our universities so they can compete with our own American grads for the jobs that he admits we are going to really have to struggle to keep in the U.S. vs. them being in other countries.

(Read the entire live blog at http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusab ... y-connect-
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