Thread: Activism Idea - Things to say to Sinema

“Congressional Democrats and immigration advocates are staring at their best chance in years to overcome Republican opposition and give millions of people in the U.S. without legal authorization a way to become citizens.
Their goal is to stuff the language into a huge measure this fall financing many of President Joe Biden’s priorities that would be shielded from a Republican Senate filibuster. That bill-killing procedure requires a virtually impossible 60 votes to overcome, but erasing that danger with a Democrat in the White House means they could score an immigration triumph by themselves after years of Republican blockades. … In a crucial first step in this process, Congress must approve a budget resolution. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has been trying to win Democratic support for one he hopes to unveil soon. The budget will be pivotal in two ways. First, it will contain language preventing Republicans from filibustering the subsequent bill funding Biden’s priorities. By law, the budget resolution itself cannot be filibustered.”
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden...9ab097bb168660

Sinema has said that her “support for retaining the 60-vote threshold is not based on the importance of any particular policy. It is based on what is best for our democracy. ... I do not accept a new standard by which important legislation can only pass on party-line votes”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...he-people-act/

So if "Democrats are turning their last hopes for immigration reform to an infrastructure bill and a complicated budget plan that has never before been tested ... and forcing the legislation through a partisan process like reconciliation"
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/15/p...ons/index.html then Sinema should refuse to support it.

Senator Sinema also said that the "minimum wage provision is not appropriate for the reconciliation process. It is not a budget item. And it shouldn’t be in there."
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...mocrats-468768

And "immigration reform" isn't a "budget item" either unless you're a power hungry Democrat who considers illegal aliens to be the equivalent of cash to buy votes for Democrats.

So if Sinema votes for Sanders partisan budget resolution for amnesty she will be breaking her promise of protecting the filibuster by passing important legislation through a party-line vote through a new standard of reconciliation.

Sinema said that "Arizonans expect me to do what I promised when I ran for the House and the Senate: to be independent — like Arizona" https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...he-people-act/

Well she can show that she is an independent by keeping her promise to protect the filibuster and refusing to support Sander's partisan reconciliation bill unless "immigration reform" is removed from it.

It's what Arizonans want her to do. In Arizona if Mark Kelly supports amnesty in the reconciliation bill, "49% of voters would be 'less likely' to vote for him versus 26% who would be 'more likely.'"
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/immi...213300278.html

Sinema also wrote the following: "Bipartisan working groups to which I belong are negotiating how to ... raise the federal minimum wage."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...he-people-act/

If Sinema supports amnesty in the reconciliation bill, I don't ever want to hear another word from her again on the minimum wage because she is driving down wages by supporting amnesty.

Harvard economist George Borjas says that immigration "induces a substantial redistribution of wealth, away from workers who compete with immigrants and toward employers and other users of immigrant services. Workers lose because immigrants drag wages down. Employers gain because immigrants drag wages down. These wealth transfers may be in the tens of billions of dollars per year."
https://cis.org/Report/Top-Ten-Symptoms-Immigration

Black civil rights leader and Democrat Barbara Jordan also agreed with George Borjas. Barbara Jordan recommended "the elimination of the admission of unskilled workers".
https://www.numbersusa.com/sites/def..._June%2028.pdf

Barbara Jordan also said that there is "no national interest in continuing to import lesser-skilled and unskilled workers to compete in the most vulnerable parts of our labor force. Many American workers do not have adequate job prospects. We should make their task easier to find employment, not harder."
https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...ration-legacy/

The evidence of this is also in the words of the author of the budget resolution, Bernie Sanders whose budget draft would create "multiyear pathways to legal permanent residency, and potentially citizenship, for four groups of immigrants without legal status."
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden...9ab097bb168660

Here is what Bernie Sanders said back in 2015: “Open borders? No, that's a Koch brothers proposal. ... What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don't believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country, I think we have to do everything we can to create millions of jobs.”
https://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/901449...x-conversation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0

So Bernie Sanders admits immigration drive down wages and then sponsors the budget resolution that stuffs amnesty into the reconciliation bill. So who is included in Bernie Sanders amnesty plan?

According to the Hill the "proposal, as currently funded, would include undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors, beneficiaries of the Temporary Protected Status program, essential workers and immigrant farmworkers."
https://thehill.com/latino/563047-ma...in-budget-deal

So who else is supporting amnesty for those same groups? In a letter that written by the Bush Institute and 20+ organizations, said that they support the "efforts in Congress to advance the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, create a permanent pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, and allow those on Temporary Protected Status to apply for green cards." They also mention "essential workers" and wrote that "undocumented immigrants who already live in the U.S.—should have an opportunity to earn legal status or citizenship."
https://www.bushcenter.org/publicati...and-house.html
https://www.bushcenter.org/about-the...on-system.html

So the George W. Bush Institute and Bernie Sanders support giving amnesty to the same groups of people. One of the organizations that "distributed a joint letter calling upon our nation's policymakers to reform the whole of the American immigration system" is the "Americans for Prosperity".
https://www.bushcenter.org/about-the...on-system.html

So who created and funds the Americans for Prosperity? Americans for Prosperity was "founded by the Koch brothers in 2004".
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...ization-479148

"David Koch’s charitable giving has included $58 million donated to nonprofits that could include groups such as Americans for Prosperity".
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/koch-brothers

George W. Bush also admitted the role of the Koch Brothers in his effort to support amnesty. In an interview with Hugh Hewitt he said, "So the Bush Center is spearheading a reform movement. It’s quiet except for this book, which makes it not quiet. But it’s, we’re lining up. And you know, we’re talking to people about, you know, what needs to be done. I mean, the Koch Brothers, for example, I know that’s a word that scares a lot of people on the left, but they’re very much in favor of a rational immigration policy. And they’re putting money behind it, and they’re pushing hard. And so we’re very much involved with what you said."
https://hughhewitt.com/president-geo...ration-debate/

So Bernie Sanders admits that immigration drives down wages and supports giving the same groups of immigrants amnesty that the Koch Brothers do? I guess Bernie Sanders should be known from now on as "Sellout Sanders" hashtag:#SelloutSanders

So I guess this is part of what Biden's phrase "Build Back Better" really means. Build Back Better for multinational corporations, the elite, and illegal aliens and not for the American people.

But that is not the only way tha amnesty will hurt the country.

Senator Sinema said, "I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion"
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...ocial-n1275330

But if amnesty is part of the reconciliation bill, it will probably cost a lot more than 3.5 trillion.
A CNN article at https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/04/new...are/index.html says that "as many as 71 percent of undocumented adults do not have insurance."

An article in the Federalist at http://thefederalist.com/2015/08/26/...-of-deception/ said that "'71 percent of illegal-alien headed households with children make use of at least one major welfare program.' That number jumps to 79 percent in illegal households from Mexico. By comparison, only 38.7 percent of households headed by U.S. citizens use at least one major welfare program."

Obama admitted this. In his book, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" on page 263 at https://books.google.com/books?id=k85pcYttpW0C&pg=PA263 Obama wrote that illegal immigration "threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net."

This will of course encourage more people to cross the border illegally.

This will encourage people to come illegally from Mexico. A Center for Immigration Studies article at http://cis.org/ZogbyPoll-EffectsOfAmnesty mentioned a Zogby poll of Mexicans which said that a "clear majority of people in Mexico, 56 percent, thought giving legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States would make it more likely that people they know would go to the United States illegally" and of "Mexicans with a member of their immediate household in the United States, 65 percent said a legalization program would make people they know more likely to go to America illegally." The poll also stated that increased immigration enforcement was one of the reasons "fewer people were going to America as illegal immigrants and more were coming back to Mexico."

This will also encourage people to come illegally from the rest of Latin America. According to a Gallup poll "42 million -- said they want to go to the United States. ... Seekers of citizenship or asylum are watching to determine exactly when and how is the best time to make their move."
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chai...n-migrate.aspx

And it will even encourage people to come illegally from all across the globe. "In the remote Darien region of Eastern Panama, migrants and asylum seekers from around the world arrived ... Migrants from Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Cuba, and Haiti converge here, all trying to get to the U.S."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ho...dly-darien-gap

And they are coming because "a lot of asylum seekers right now are hopeful is that, with the new administration of Joe Biden, that there may be a lot of dramatic changes that could allow them to settle into a life more quickly and easily in the United States."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/th...er-in-brooklyn

In a story on PBS Newshour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy...ees-in-america economist Jeffrey Sachs said that if "borders were simply opened and anybody could go where they want, ... hundreds of millions of people would be on the move and would overwhelm budgets and social services".

So if amnesty is included in the reconciliation bill, the cost will probably be a lot higher than 3.5 trillion.

Sinema also said her "support for retaining the 60-vote threshold is not based on the importance of any particular policy. It is based on what is best for our democracy. ... This question is less about the immediate results from any of these Democratic or Republican goals — it is the likelihood of ... deepening divisions and further eroding Americans’ confidence in our government. ... Instability, partisanship and tribalism continue to infect our politics."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...he-people-act/

But that is exactly what Sinema risk happening if she supports immigration reform in the reconciliation bill. She risk getting the exact opposite of what she has intended.

Journalist and author George Packer, says that there are "four ways in which Americans identify themselves and the country, dominant ways."
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-an...-groups-1nsqw/

Each of those ways in which "Americans identify themselves and the country" is an "identity" and amnesty would make this worse.

Harvard Professor, Samuel Huntington said that "Mexican immigration is a unique, disturbing, and looming challenge to our cultural integrity, our national identity, and potentially to our future as a country."
https://cis.org/Report/Reconsidering...o-Special-Case

One of reasons given by Huntington is that "Mexican immigrants are heavily concentrated in the Southwest and particularly in Southern California."
https://cis.org/Report/Reconsidering...o-Special-Case


Historian John Higham was also "concerned about the intense concentration of Latino immigrants in Southern California and Miami."
https://cis.org/Historian-John-Higha...it-Immigration

Higham wrote that "numbers and concentrated visibility in specific regions have reached a level at which our history should have warned us to expect serious trouble …. For the first time we may be creating enclaves of permanent minorities on a pattern familiar in other parts of the world, where a dominant ethnic group dwelling at the center of the country is surrounded by minorities on the periphery," and that a "geographic pattern that produces bitter conflict from Quebec to Tibet is becoming possible in the United States."
https://cis.org/Historian-John-Higha...it-Immigration

So it seems to me that amnesty could result in five ways in which Americans identify themselves and polarize our country even further.

A 2007 survey by Pew Research Center said that in "nearly every country surveyed, people worry about losing their traditional culture and national identities, and they feel their way of life needs protection against foreign influences. Importantly, the poll finds widespread concerns about immigration."
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2...-immigration/9

So what other countries have issues with "national identity" and what are their lives like? Here are few examples.

Example #1 - The Ukraine and the Russian Separatists
In 2006, Russians living in the Ukraine claimed "that a repressive government in the capital, Kiev, is bent on imposing a nationalistic identity" and that "stark ethnic and cultural divisions that continue to haunt Ukraine".
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/wo...fore-vote.html

Within a decade civil war broke out in the Ukraine and it is still being fought to this day.

Example #2 - Israel and Palestine

Here are two excerpts of identity on Israel and the Palestinians

"Israel’s parliament, has again stirred deep emotions about the identity of the Jewish state, and how Israelis seek to define themselves and the others who shared the land of Israel."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/th...-jewish-people

"These are my fellow citizens. And what we need to do in terms of our internal dynamics, how to bring the 20 percent of Israel that is Arab, that's Palestinian, citizens of Israel, how to bring them closer into the mainstream, how to bring them into a shared sense of a civic common identity with Jews, that, I think, is ultimately the deepest domestic challenge for Israel"
https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/amp...-21/segment/01

Example #3 - The Kurds

"Millions of Kurds in Northern Iraq went to the polls today to vote on whether to begin the process of creating their own nation, and separating from the rest of Iraq. ... Voting for a new country, a national identity for themselves ... Neighboring countries Turkey, Syria and Iran are threatening military action if more moves towards independence are made. They are afraid the Kurdish minorities in their own countries could start agitating for independence too." One Turkish Kurd said, "We don’t say we are from Kurdish Turkey, or Kurdish Iran or Kurdish Syria. We say we are from Northern Kurdistan or Eastern Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan. We are from Kurdistan."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/fa...d-independence

For those who insist on calling us a nation of immigrants, here is what a couple of the founding fathers said that I think could be a good description of amnesty.

Benjamin Franklin expressed concern about too much German immigration and asked "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs"?"
https://books.google.com/books?id=9shiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA320

In other words, is open borders and amnesty making these illegal aliens American or if they don't assimilate is it making America foreign? For the record Benjamin Franklin got what he wanted and after the French and Indian War, German immigration was halted.

Here's an excerpt of what founding father and immigrant, Alexander Hamilton said: "The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; ... it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. ... The permanent effect of such a policy will be, that in times of great public danger there will be always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone will weaken the strength of the nation".
https://books.google.com/books?id=hm0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA776

In response to the argument of those who feel compassion for the illegal aliens who are fleeing violence or are looking for a better life economically and for those who think that America can handle it as a humanitarian challenge because we are the most powerful nation in the world or that we are a nation of immigrants. Think again.

Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington said that if "over one million Mexican soldiers crossed the border Americans would treat it as a major threat to their national security and react accordingly. The invasion of over one million Mexican civilians, as Fox seems to recommend, would be a comparable threat to American societal security, and Americans should react against it with comparable vigor."
https://cis.org/Report/Reconsidering...o-Special-Case

But amnesty will cause a much bigger invasion than just Mexico. According to a Gallup poll of Latin America, "42 million -- said they want to go to the United States. ... Seekers of citizenship or asylum are watching to determine exactly when and how is the best time to make their move." https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chai...n-migrate.aspx

And it will also encourage people to come illegally from all across the globe. "In the remote Darien region of Eastern Panama, migrants and asylum seekers from around the world arrived ... Migrants from Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Cuba, and Haiti converge here, all trying to get to the U.S."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ho...dly-darien-gap

And they are coming because "a lot of asylum seekers right now are hopeful is that, with the new administration of Joe Biden, that there may be a lot of dramatic changes that could allow them to settle into a life more quickly and easily in the United States."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/th...er-in-brooklyn

This situation seems similar to the Roman Empire which at the time was one of the most powerful nations on Earth.

According to the Roman Historian, Ammianus, in 376 "a barbarian host composed of different distant nations, which had suddenly been driven by force from their own country ... begged that the people thus driven from their homes and now encamped on the other side of the river, might be kindly received by us, the affair seemed a cause of joy rather than of fear, according to the skilful flatterers who were always extolling and exaggerating the good fortune of the emperor; congratulating him that an embassy had come from the furthest corners of the earth unexpectedly, offering him a large body of recruits ; and that, by combining the strength of his own nation with these foreign forces, he would have an army absolutely invincible; ... Full of this hope he sent forth several officers to
bring this ferocious people and their waggons into our territory. And such great pains were taken to gratify this nation which was destined to overthrow the empire of Rome, that not one was left behind, not even of those who were stricken with mortal disease. ... In this way, through the turbulent zeal of violent people, the ruin of the Roman empire was brought on. This, at all events, is neither obscure nor uncertain, that the unhappy officers who were intrusted with the charge of
conducting the multitude of the barbarians across the river, though they repeatedly endeavoured to calculate their
numbers, at last abandoned the attempt as hopeless : and the man who would wish to ascertain the number might
as well (as the most illustrious of poets ' says) attempt to count the waves in the African sea, or the grains of sand
tossed about by the zephyr."
https://books.google.com/books?id=hh8NAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA585
https://books.google.com/books?id=hh8NAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA586

So there you have it. Giving asylum to large numbers of immigrants and open borders destroyed the Roman Empire. The destruction of Rome by immigration was also referred to by Alexander Hamilton, who was himself an immigrant.

Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton wrote that "it is known, that hardly any thing contributed more to the downfall of Rome, than her precipitate communication of the privileges of citizenship to the inhabitants of Italy at large."
https://books.google.com/books?id=hm0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA774

So if Democrats pass amnesty through this reconcilation bill, I will consider it an act of treason and they will go down in history as American versions of Emperor Valens who killed their own country.

Sinema said her "support for retaining the 60-vote threshold is not based on the importance of any particular policy. It is based on what is best for our democracy. ... This question is less about the immediate results from any of these Democratic or Republican goals — it is the likelihood of ... deepening divisions and further eroding Americans’ confidence in our government. ... Instability, partisanship and tribalism continue to infect our politics."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...he-people-act/

If Sinema and the Democrats put amnesty in the reconciliation bill, she is doing the very thing he claims to oppose.

In 2007, almost a decade before Trump was elected President and almost a decade before Britain supported Brexit because of immigration, a Pew Research Center survey found that in our "rapidly changing world, people from nations both rich and poor worry about losing their traditional culture. In 46 of 47 countries, majorities say their traditional way of life is getting lost."
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2...global-change/

The survey also stated the following: "Majorities of Americans and Canadians also say that there should be more restrictions on people entering their countries than there is today. Three-quarters of Americans and 62% of Canadians express that opinion. ... opinions about immigration are closely linked to perceptions about threats to a country’s culture. In 46 of 47 countries, those who favor stricter immigration controls are also more likely to believe their way of life needs to be protected against foreign influence. In every region, this relationship is generally strong and consistent."
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2...f-immigration/

The founding fathers of our country agreed the with results of the survey.
In the words of Thomas Jefferson the illegal aliens will "bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth ... they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us in the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions".
https://books.google.com/books?id=NDo_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA129

In the words of Alexander Hamilton the illegal aliens or "foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners.
They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived ... The influx of
foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all-important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.
The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass ; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. It has been often likely to compromit the interests of our own country in favor of another. The permanent effect of such a policy will be, that in times of great public danger there will be always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone will weaken the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader."
https://books.google.com/books?id=hm0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA775
https://books.google.com/books?id=hm0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA776

Benjamin Franklin expressed concern about too much German immigration and asked "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs"?"
https://books.google.com/books?id=9shiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA320

In other words, is open borders and amnesty making these illegal aliens American or if they don't assimilate is it making America foreign? For the record Benjamin Franklin got his way and after the French and Indian War, German immigration was halted.

But 14 years after the the Pew Survey results, in spite of the election of Donald Trump, the passage of Brexit, with illegal aliens pouring across the border with covid and people in this country still out of work because of covid, the Democratic Party is trying to pass a partisan reconciliation bill that "could ultimately regularize the status of up to 10 million people" and "would mark the first time in 35 years that Congress dictates a liberalization of immigration policy after decades of increasing border security and immigration enforcement."
https://thehill.com/latino/563047-ma...in-budget-deal

This amnesty bill is the exact opposite of the founding fathers and what people in the Pew survey around the globe want.
All we keep hearing about is the plight of refugees and immigrants. We hear stories about refugees who "return to a country that they don't recognize, where they have no place, and they go back without their children or grandchildren".
https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/amp...-07/segment/01

Well that sounds similar to a story I read in the New York Times where a Virginia resident named Charles Poland said that the place where he lives is "a totally different world, ... If my parents came back today, they wouldn’t recognize the place. The changes came like a tidal wave." And the cause was an "influx of immigrants and their U.S.-born children".
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/09/u...publicans.html

In other words, by supporting amnesty the Democrats are doing to their own citizens what foreign leaders in other countries have done to refugees who fled their countries.

Historian John Higham wrote that "in considering the short-sighted self-interest that allows illegal immigration to run wild, all of us should bear in mind ... the growing dangers and inequities it produces".
https://cis.org/Historian-John-Higha...it-Immigration

As far as I am concerned if the federal government won't restrict immigration, secure the border, and refuse to give people amnesty, I fear that in the future America will end up in a civil war like the Ukraine or Syria. I have heard predictions that America may no longer be one country by 2040 and I think those predictions may come to pass.

Bernie Sanders, the author of the amnesty budget resolution, a.k.a. #selloutsanders said back in 2015: "Open borders ... you're doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don't think there's any country in the world that believes in that."
https://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/901449...x-conversation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0

And I will add that amnesty to use the words of Bernie Sanders is also "doing away with the concept of a nation state".

Sinema said her "support for retaining the 60-vote threshold is not based on the importance of any particular policy. It is based on what is best for our democracy. ... This question is less about the immediate results from any of these Democratic or Republican goals — it is the likelihood of ... deepening divisions and further eroding Americans’ confidence in our government. ... Instability, partisanship and tribalism continue to infect our politics."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...he-people-act/

And that is exactly what Sinema could do if she supports amnesty in the reconciliation bill.

One thing is for sure if amnesty passes in the reconciliation bill, one immediate consequence will be that I will #BoycottTheShot.

https://www.alipac.us/f12/acitivism-...heshot-387329/

So if Sinema votes for amnesty in the reconciliation bill she will be contributing to vaccine hesitancy.