Thread: ANOTHER CHANCE IN CONGRESS TO TACKLE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

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ANOTHER CHANCE IN CONGRESS TO TACKLE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Help make that happen by taking all actions possible on your personalized Action Buffet corkboard:

www.NumbersUSA.com/actionbuffet

We'll be adding more items during the day Friday.



1. PUBLIC DISPLEASURE WITH 'NO ACTION' PROMPTS HOUSE PLEDGE TO TAKE FIRST STEPS


Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert this afternoon announced that true immigration reform is back on the agenda this month!

Three of us from your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team met in Capitol leadership offices this afternoon to get more details -- and to deliver our own message of what we believe most Americans want.

House Republican leaders felt they had to come out swinging after the New York Times earlier this week said they and Senate leaders had come back to Washington after summer vacations with no intention of dealing any more with immigration.

Public reactions to that kind of do-nothingism were explosively negative.

When I was interviewed by the Lou Dobbs show on CNN Tuesday, I was asked what the Republican leaders should do that would make political sense to them. My response was that House leaders should re-pass the key enforcement elements of the H.R. 4437 bill the House passed last December and then force Senate Republican leaders to bring those elements to a vote. I said there was nothing to be gained and much to be lost by dealing with any other issue, such as guestworkers, amnesties and legal immigration increases.

It looks like some other people had the same idea, because that essentially is what the House Republican leadership promised this afternoon.

Although it is doubtful Congress this fall would pass most of the enforcement measures needed to tame our out-of-control illegal immigration, there now appears to be a decent chance to get several first important new steps enacted.

2. THE 2-WEEK TIMETABLE


Incredibly, Congress is planning to be in Washington only two more weeks.

Is it really possible to get something passed and to the President's desk in that short time?

House GOP leaders are planning to hold a public hearing next week that will get the reports from all the committee chairmen who held hearings across the country this summer.

You will recall that the House GOP leaders refused to appoint a team of negotiators to work with Senate negotiators to come up with a compromise between the Senate amnesty/giant immigration increase and the House enforcement bill. Instead, those leaders pulled one of the boldest actions I've seen since I arrived in Washington in 1987: They sent chairmen across the country to pick up more testimony.

The knock against this was that it was all show but would lead to nothing in the fall.

Now, the House leaders are saying that they are going to see to it that the hearings lead to legislation that would be brought to the floor in two weeks.

Here is what Speaker Hastert said today:

"Our borders are a sieve and we are at war and we certainly need to act like we are at war. We need to close our borders."

Somehow, the enforcement measures may be passed and then wrapped up in appropriations bills that may not finally be passed until after the November elections. Or they may get through the Senate and be put before President Bush for his signature. We'll be following this closely.

Extremely important to be included are:

1. As much fence as possible on the border.
2. Mandatory verification for all new hires in all businesses.
3. Federal assistance of local communities trying to rid themselves of illegal alien populations.
4. An end to handing out hundreds of thousands of green cards and work visas without properly running the foreign workers through security clearances.


3. THE 3-MONTH TIMETABLE


Regardless of what happens this month, Congress seems likely to return after the elections in November and maybe early December to approve remaining appropriations bills.

This lame-duck session is extremely dangerous.

We know that the business lobbyists are putting incredible pressure on Members of Congress to slip terrible things into the giant omnibus appropriations legislation that will be considered in the lame-duck session.

The push is for large increases in green cards for permanent foreign workers and in H-1B temporary visas primarily for foreign workers who will take jobs from and lower the wages for American nurses, engineers, programmers and other skilled workers.

If these things get slipped into an appropriations bill, there will be no way to get them out.

That is why we must continue to mobilize and rally throughout the October campaign season to persuade congressional leaders that they will pay a price if they come back after the elections and harm American workers and communities in ways that they are promising not to do during the campaigns.

We made this point this afternoon at the Capitol.

We said that we will mobilize massive opposition to any politician who works hard to fight illegal immigration before the election but then turns around after the election and increases worker/wage competition against our own American workers.

The motto must always be LESS IMMIGRATION OF ALL KINDS. We cannot win the fight against illegal immigration (which primarily hurts lower skilled American workers) and then allow Congress to undercut and even destroy the economic lives of our more highly skilled American workers.

We must stand together and defend the ability of all of our fellow Americans to make a decent living in their occupations without the government threatening it with immigration -- and defend the ability of all Americans to protect their quality of life in their own communities from being overwhelmed by immigration.

We will continue to provide you with ways to pressure on these points.

All pressures on elected officials (as well as on the media, corporations and other institutions) create an overall climate in which progress can occur.

And there is no doubt that all of you -- and citizens like you across the country -- have brought about this new "September opportunity" by your incessant pressure for true immigration enforcement and reductions.


4. A NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE THAT SHOWS THAT YOUR CITIZEN ACTIVISM IS WINNING


I can't think of another article that more completely shows the victory that all of your citizen activism is bringing to this country.

This article suggests the following very positive trends:

1. Republicans believe the only way they can hold onto their majority in the House is to campaign hard-line on immigration. Even the Times seems to understand that if the GOP holds the House it will be because of taking our side on the immigration issue.

2. Democrats who want a chance to win away a Republican seat are having to talk increasingly tough at least against illegal immigration.

3. Candidates of both parties are having to distance themselves from their open borders leaders, such as Republican Bush and Democrat Pelosi.

This movement for overall immigration reductions is 26 years old now.

As a newspaper reporter, I covered this movement from 1979 through 1990. I've worked full-time since 1990 writing books, researching for scholarly journals and then forming NumbersUSA in 1997 to deal with this issue.

I can tell you that I have NEVER seen a time in which the political winds were blowing more favorably for us.

This is the time to put all the activism we can to push through the first steps of positive solutions for our communities and our country.

September 6, 2006

In Bellwether District, G.O.P. Runs on Immigration

By CARL HULSE

AURORA, Colo. — It was not by chance that Republicans brought their summer tour of hearings on illegal immigration to this growing community just outside Denver.

Not only is Aurora bearing the costs of schooling and providing other services for a significant population of illegal immigrants, it is in the heart of a swing district and so is central to the intense battle for control of the House of Representatives.

And while Congress is unlikely to enact major immigration legislation before November, inaction does not make the issue any less potent in campaigning. In fact, many Republicans, on the defensive here and around the country over the war in Iraq, say they are finding that a hard-line immigration stance resonates not just with conservatives, who have been disheartened on other fronts this year, but also with a wide swath of voters in districts where control of the House could be decided.

“Immigration is an issue that is really popping, “ said Dan Allen, a Republican strategist. “It is an issue that independents are paying attention to as well. It gets us talking about security and law and order.”

Leading Republicans, leery of a compromise on immigration, are encouraging their candidates to keep the focus on border control, as in legislation passed by the House, rather than accept a broader bill that would also clear a path for many illegal immigrants to gain legal status. The latter approach, approved by the Senate with overwhelming Democratic support and backed by the White House, makes illegal immigration one of the issues on which Republicans face a tough choice of standing by President Bush or taking their own path.

“The American people want a good illegal-immigration-reform bill,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House majority leader, “not a watered-down, pro-amnesty bill.”

Here in the Seventh District, the Republican push brought a Senate subcommittee hearing the other day to explore the costs of illegal immigration. The taxpayer-financed, ostensibly nonpartisan meeting took on the air of political theater.

“They are here in this district with this topic attempting to drum up support in a closely contested Congressional race,” fumed Lisa Duran, director of an immigrant rights group.

If that was the tactic, it may have worked. The angry confrontation thrust the session into the headlines, reminding residents that the issue remained a leading one in the House race between Rick O’Donnell, the Republican nominee, and Ed Perlmutter, the Democrat, who are running to fill a seat being vacated by Representative Bob Beauprez, a Republican seeking the governorship.

The issue remains on voters’ minds “because people are trying to keep it on their minds,” said Mr. Perlmutter, who accused Republicans of staging the hearing for political gain.

(The Democrat)Mr. Perlmutter, a former state legislator, is trying to navigate tough political terrain by coming down hard for border enforcement while leaving the door open for illegal immigrants to seek citizenship eventually. His opponent, a former state higher education official, says such a position will not sell in Denver suburbs characterized by unease that the nation has inadequately policed its borders.

“I know the voters in my district are adamantly opposed to anything that smacks of amnesty,” Mr. O’Donnell said.

Republicans went into this year determined to keep the midterm elections from becoming a referendum on national issues and Mr. Bush, insisting that they would run on local concerns instead. But in this district, as in most others with tightly contested races around the country, the campaign is turning on the overarching national issues.

On immigration, many Republicans, like Mr. O’Donnell, have put distance between themselves and the Bush administration, emphasizing stronger border security and ignoring or rejecting the president’s support for the broader legislation.

Similarly, on Iraq, Mr. O’Donnell is trying to find a middle ground that, though basically supportive of Mr. Bush, allows the candidate to be critical of the war’s management. Like the president, Mr. O’Donnell says that American troops should not be withdrawn until Iraq is stabilized and that setting a deadline for a pullout could lead to disaster. Yet he is trying to separate himself from the administration’s handling of the war, saying that “we may need new leadership at the Pentagon.”

* * * * * * * *

Just a few weeks ago politicians and analysts suspected that immigration had lost its political punch in Colorado, after the legislature enacted a tough immigration overhaul including tighter identification rules for those seeking state government services.

But the issue refuses to die. Mr. O’Donnell said it was the subject most frequently raised with him by residents. At the hearing here the other day, presided over by Senator Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican, more than 200 people showed up even though it had promised to be a fairly dry look at the fiscal effects of illegal immigration.

On the street outside, the emotions surrounding the debate were on vivid display. Advocates on both sides chanted slogans, sought to outshout each other and displayed signs like “No Human Being Is Illegal” and “Stop the Invasion.”

Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican elected eight years ago, testified on illegal immigration’s costs to the state, saying the influx was not a driving issue when he first took office but had since risen to the top of Colorado’s concerns. “The state did take some important steps,” Mr. Owens said of the recently enacted immigration measure, “because of weaknesses in federal law. But there is a lot more that needs to be done.”

In an interview, Mr. O’Donnell accused his party’s leader, Mr. Bush, of being soft on illegal immigration. “I don’t know why the administration hasn’t enforced the laws,” he said, adding that his objective was border security.

Mr. Perlmutter said he shared that goal. But he said the government also had to deal with the millions of illegal residents already in the United States, enabling some to “earn your citizenship if you are learning English, paying taxes, haven’t committed a crime and have a job,” as the Senate bill provides. He blames Republicans for allowing the problem to fester.

* * * * * * *


5. WHAT ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS


Because the Republicans have majority control over the Senate, House and Presidency, we have to focus our greatest attention on them for getting our agenda through.

But Democrats in Congress could make all the difference in whether we get our positive steps forward.

Regardless of how we all may feel about all other issues and which Party best represents our interests, the fact is that we would have a massive amnesty for illegal aliens today if it had not been for House Republicans screaming NO early this summer and blocking it.

All of the Democratic leadership and most Democratic Members have been absolutely terrible on immigration.

But all of you with Democratic Representatives and Senators need to help them understand that they have a chance to redeem themselves this month. Even if these Democrats still agree with Pres. Bush and the Chamber of Commerce that we should flood our labor markets with foreign workers, the Democrats must protect themselves politically by going along with the enforcement-only legislation.

If Democrats try to stop the House Republican leaders, they will fall into the trap being set for them and hurt their November election-day chances.

It is true that if they help the enforcement legislation go through, the Republicans will get credit. But the Democrats will be far less hurt in this scenario than in one in which they let the Republicans have the border and job security claims all to themselves.

In addition, Democrats can still rail against Pres. Bush's refusal for six years to uphold his oath of office to carry out the laws of the land and to carry out the Constitution's mandate that he protect the states against invasion.

And there remain plenty of Republicans with lackluster to horrible immigration records against whom a Democrat could pick up large numbers of votes by taking a strong immigration restriction stand.

So, those of you who favor Democrats this election, please try to help the Democratic candidates understand how important it is for them to position themselves as the true protectors of workers and take our side of the immigration debate.

THANKS,

-- ROY

P.S. I can't tell you how nice it was to look out the window of the Capitol office where we met and be able to point out that the hundreds of thousands of illegal alien supporters that had been promised for the demonstration there ...

... had turned out only several hundred people.

The opposition's announced mass advocacy for open borders has been fizzling all over the country. Their poor numerical showing is giving tons of negative fodder for news stories. Our side's strategy is proving far more successful -- avoiding mass demonstrations and concentrating on showing up at public meetings and making so many phone calls and sending so many faxes that reporters constantly are quoting politicians saying that pressure against overall immigration is the No. 1 issue they face from their constituents. Let's keep it up.

There were a number of good faxes available at NumbersUSA. I got them sent. Certainly, the Congress should not wait around on border security and enforcement of law. Running for election with a national security platform makes little sense if your country is the equivalent a carport with two open sides.

"Our borders are a sieve and we are at war and we certainly need to act like we are at war. We need to close our borders."

I'm going to take a wild guess on this one, but I gather Congressman Hastert wasn't impressed w/ marches to his office by illegals demanding amnesty.

I think it would be possible to pass the enforcement only portion of the bill for now. At least the first goal of sealing the border would be accomplished.
I really hope this is not a quick and desperate attempt by Republicans to say "we have done something" and to try and save face before the elections.