From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Monday 19DEC05 3:15 a.m. EST


37 votes in U.S. House produce surprisingly strong immigration enforcement bill ... Our Recap

THANK YOU, NUMBERSUSA WEBSITE USERS,

Your months of faxing, phoning, etc., led to victories on nearly all of the 37 votes on the House floor at the end of last week.

You forced this issue to the floor and forced incredibly easy bi-partisan victories on most things.

In the end, we got a very good bill passed late Friday evening. If the Senate would approve this same bill and if the President would sign it and fully implement it, I have no doubt that we would see the illegal population in this country reduced over the next 10 years to a small fraction of its current size.

And this bill also represents the first time since 1924 that either chamber of Congress has approved legislation to REDUCE legal immigration!

This House-passed bill is missing some pretty important ingredients of the overall solution to our immigration problems. And the major good provisions aren't as strong in all ways that they could be.

But there is virtually nothing in this bill that is negative, so that the result of the dozen or so strong, good provisions in the bill would be a vast improvement in our immigration situation.


1. VIEW ALL RESULTS and how your Representative voted ... Details on our special H.R. 4437 page


You can see a description of every amendment, disposition, vote totals and links to roll calls so you can see how the Representatives from your state acted.

View results here.
www.numbersusa.com/hottopic/4437.html

You will also see our summaries of the action and links to our press releases sent to hundreds of media outlets.


2. DEMOCRATS IMPRESS ... Wonderful new support


Our hats are off to all of you who have Democratic Representatives and/or who are Democrats yourselves.

You have continued through the last months (and years) to hammer Democratic Members of Congress even when it sometimes looked like the effort was hopeless -- and even though the Democratic Party leadership and most Democratic officeholders have for years opposed crackdowns on illegal immigration and have backed flooding our American job markets with more foreign workers.

I am convinced that pressure from you and others like you was the only reason that our cause last week got far more support from Democats than at any time in at least the last 50 years!

You are going to be surprised at how many Democrats voted with our cause.

On most of the good amendments, support for our side was so great among Democrats that their leaders did not even call for a roll call vote and allowed the amendments to pass by voice vote.

Four roll call votes were on especially tough, hard-core provisions: (1) the final vote for passage, (2) the fence on Mexico's border, (3) killing the visa lottery, and (4) the Norwood CLEAR Act provisions for local detention of illegal aliens.

75 Democrats were with us on at least one of those hard-core votes!

Special Democratic champions for our side during those toughest votes include:

Rep. Boucher of Virginia, who is a Member of the House Judiciary Committee where the rest of the Democratic Members are the most pro-open-borders group in the House. Two-thirds of Virginia's Democrats helped us.

Rep. Herseth of South Dakota, a newly elected, special-elections Member who co-sponsored with Rep. Goodlatte (R-VA) the amendment to kill the lottery.

Rep. DeFazio, the great environmentalist from Oregon.

Rep. Lincoln Davis of Tennessee, a leader among the Blue Dog Democratic Caucus.

Rep. Ford of Tennessee, the rising young star of the Congressional Black Caucus.

We owe a special thanks to all of you activists in Tennessee who have to get the credit for the fact that all 5 of your Democratic Representatives from Tennessee voted with us the majority of the time on the toughest issues.

At the moment, Tennessee's Democratic Representatives are far more responsive to the public will on immigration than are the state's two Republican Senators.


3. DEMOCRATS IN HOUSE BADLY SPLIT ... not the Republicans


Many of the news accounts at the end of the week had headlines or prominent placement in the text that the immigration votes last week revealed deep splits in the Republican Party between the business-dominated wing and the wing that bends with public wishes.

But what constitutes a "split?" If you are divided 3-2 or maybe even 3-1, that would be a "split." Divided 1-1 (a 50/50 split) would be a "deadlock."

But surely a group divided, let's say, 10-1 on an issue would not qualify as "split," let alone "badly split." That would be a Party with a minority splinter group.

On the final vote on H.R. 4437, only 17 Republicans voted NO. That's only 8% voting against their Party leadership's request for support.

Twelve times more Republicans voted YES than voted NO. That is a division of 12-1 -- most emphatically not a "split" at all.

On the other toughest provisions, even fewer Republicans were in the splinter minority.

But 37% of Democrats voted against their leadership and for stronger enforcement during the toughest roll-calls. That constitutes a 3-5 division, most decidedly qualifying as a deeply split Party.

What every reporter, columnist and editorial writer whom I have read has missed is that it is the Democrats in the House who are badly split over immigration.

And that is a wonderful development for those of us seeking immigration relief for our over-congested communities and labor markets, our over-pressured natural resources, and over-taxed infrastructures and social services.

In 10 states, all of the Democrats in the House voted with us at least some of the time on the toughest four.

In 25 states (counting those 10), half or more of the Democratic Members of the House voted with us -- and against their leadership -- at least some of the time on the toughest four. That is "badly split."

Besides the activists in Tennessee, we need to especially salute those of you in the following states who have obviously brought such influence to bear on your Democratic Members of Congress so that they helped us some on the toughest four votes:

Arkansas, all three Democrats helped us. I'll note that we have done a lot of advertising with fellow immigration-reduction organizations in this state (as we did in Tennessee).


Georgia, where local grassroots groups have state legislators in a frenzy to get stricter on illegal immigration and where four Democratic Congressmen (two-thirds of the total) gave us help.


Colorado, where Republican Rep. Tancredo's constant raising of the issue -- and super active and sophisticated grassroots groups -- must have had some influence on two-thirds of the Democrats helping us -- including one with the great environmentalist name of Udall (who voted with us three of the four toughest roll calls).


Illinois, where four Democrats (just under half) helped us. This is a state where the Democratic governor just recently made a big show about offering taxpayer-subsidized home mortgages to illegal aliens and where a leading Republican candidate (Jim Oberweis) for governor and grassroots groups are aggressively pushing the opposite point of view.


New York and California, where a rather small minority of Democrats helped us, but these are states where we have gotten almost no support from Democrats in at least the last 20 years. Our faxers in Democratically held Districts in those two states are among our most discouraged. But the fact that we got help from 5 New York and 6 California last week, is a very hopeful sign.


Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah, which joined Arkansas, South Dakota and Tennessee in having all their Democratic Members of Congress helping us on the four toughest votes.


Alabama, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, where half the Democrats helped us.

We salute all of you in those states who didn't give up on these Members.


4. REPUBLICAN STANDOUTS


If you live in or near the Districts of these folks, you may want to look up their phone numbers and let them know what you think of their performance last week.

Click here for phone numbers.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment last week was Rep. Boehner of Ohio. He is considered to be one of three top contenders to be the next House Majority Leader. The election will be by fellow Republicans, so it is questionable that he gained in that race by siding with the Chamber of Commerce against most of the Republicans who will be voting in his election.

Boehner apparently was a bad influence on his Ohio delegation which included Turner, Tiberi, Boehner and Hobson voting against H.R. 4437.

All of the Republicans in New Mexico's small delegation voted against the tough new legislation -- Wilson and Pearce.

Rep. Blunt of Missouri is another major candidate for Majority Leader and is in the acting post itself right now. He distinguished himself by working with our best allies to achieve the very favorable results mentioned above on this email.

Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado played a masterful role in leveraging the power of his 92-Member immigration caucus to kill Rep. Flake's pro-guestworker language and push through all those tough amendments. On our special H.R. 4437 Vote Day page, you can see a link to an excellent Rocky Mountain News article about his role.


5. WHAT'S NEXT?


On our special Vote Day page, we lay out the next steps in this legislative battle to move H.R. 4437 into law.

See next legislative steps here.
www.numbersusa.com/hottopic/4437.html

We were with Rep. Tancredo over the weekend at an H.R. 4437 victory party. He is planning a "victory tour" to states where our side might be able to most influence Senators to help us in the Senate. It will take every bit of activism all of us can do to get a good result out of the Senate. We will be coming to you over the next few weeks with lots of action steps you can take.

THANKS FOR NOT GIVING UP AND FOR NOT THINKING THAT ANY MEMBER OF CONGRESS IS HOPELESS,

-- ROY



in this email:
1. VIEW ALL RESULTS ... How did your Rep vote on H.R. 4437
2. DEMOCRATS IMPRESS ... Wonderful new support
3. DEMOCRATS IN HOUSE BADLY SPLIT ... not the Republicans
4. REPUBLICAN standouts
5. WHAT'S NEXT?
actions in brief:
Over the next few days, we will be adding to your customized Action Buffet several new actions to reinforce the good voting of some Members of the House and to object to the bad voting.

Please go to your Action Buffet regularly.

And please watch for our automatic Alerts that provide the direct link for you to go to a new fax or phone request that has been posted.

Especially watch for opportunities to apply pressure to the Senate, which is expected to take up immigraiton legislation in Februrary.

Check for your latest free faxes to send to Congress & the Administration at:
NumbersUSA.com/actionbuffet
.
donate now:
This faxing system is 100% financed by the voluntary generosity of the 120,000-
plus Americans who use it.

Please click here to make any sized donation to keep this grassroots phenomenon strong and effective.

Do you want more or less information?
Do you want fewer emails or to UNSUBSCRIBE from receiving any emails?

As a member of the NumbersUSA Action Network, you have four options about how much email and Alerts you get from us. You can change the frequency of our communication with you at any time by clicking here to go to your Registration Form. There you can choose among Total Activism, Moderate Activism, Limited Activism or No Email. If you feel like you are not getting enough information from us, be sure to change your registration to TOTAL ACTIVISM.

Update your NumbersUSA Interest Survey This may be a good time for you to make sure that you've let us know all of the areas of immigration reform in which you are interested. Click here to further customize your Interest Survey and the type of alerts you receive from us.

P.S. NumbersUSA's financial management meets all the criteria of the IRS as a
non-partisan, non-profit organization, and as an authorized charity of the
Combined Federal Campaign. Handling of donations is overseen and held
accountable by a Board of independent directors and by independent Auditors.