Thread: Immigration bill has vocal friends, foes

Published: May 26, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: May 26, 2007 03:47 AM

Immigration bill has vocal friends, foes

By Barbara Barrett and Kristin Collins, Staff Writers
WASHINGTON - The office phone lines stay busy all day and the voice mailbox fills up every night.

In the week since the Senate proposed new immigration rules, 6,000 phone calls have swamped U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's offices -- the largest volume of constituent calls in one week on a single issue. Thousands of others have dialed up U.S. Sen. Richard Burr.

E-mail "action alerts" urging people to contact lawmakers appeared on Web sites for El Pueblo in Raleigh and a talk-radio host in Charlotte. The N.C. Farm Bureau asked its members to get involved, as did Eastern North Carolina's new Catholic bishop.

"People are rabid about this stuff," said U.S. Rep. Mel Watt, a Charlotte Democrat who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration. "There's a lot of myopic, blinders-on response to this."

The U.S. Senate took up a sweeping reform package this week that would legalize an estimated 12 million immigrants, create guest worker programs, beef up the border and crack down on illegal hiring practices. Several amendments have been debated and voted on as interest groups try to shape the delicate deal forged by the White House and top senators from both sides of the aisle.

The issue resonates in North Carolina, one of the fastest-growing destinations for illegal immigrants in the country. An estimated 300,000 immigrants are here illegally, many working in industries ranging from agriculture to construction.

Interest groups representing those industries are closely following the bill. After a week-long break for Memorial Day, the debate will pick back up in June. But no one expects fast action. Those who have watched previous immigration bills work through Congress know they crawl at the pace of a springtime caterpillar and can evolve just as radically.

No 'call to arms yet'

"I don't sense we're at a call to arms yet," said Stephen Gennett, president of Carolinas AGC, the advocacy group for general contractors. Members of his group are big employers of immigrant labor. "What we're looking at now is not what we're going to see in two or three weeks."

A week ago, retired business owner Ken Scheffel, 71, sat down at his home computer in Chapel Hill and popped off an e-mail message to Dole and Burr. Scheffel said he wonders how reform might affect the education, health care and Social Security system. He wrote again Thursday, telling the senators to get rid of illegal immigrants by enforcing the laws on the books.

"Those guys in Washington have a tendency to lose touch with reality," Scheffel said.

Across the divide is Father Paul Brant, a priest in Newton Grove who works with Hispanics and has seen the hardships they face to give their families better lives.

Brant has already mailed the first of many letters he plans to send to Dole and Burr, asking them to move forward with the debate. Now, he is glued to C-SPAN, watching the debate, trying to figure out what issues he needs to nudge them on.

A recent statewide survey shows residents are passionate about immigration, with 65 percent labeling the issue "very important," according to an Elon University poll conducted in April.

Dole, who opposes the current bill because its includes opportunities for citizenship for people here illegally, said she senses strong emotions from callers worried that illegal immigration increases incidents of drug dealing and drunken driving.

"They want to secure their communities, you know?" Dole said. "You get a real sense of the problems people are facing in their lives."

Compromise likely

Watt said he's spoken with a handful of constituent callers personally this week, warning them that the bill's final form is unsettled and that any outcome requires compromise.

"Our role is take all these strong feelings and put them into a package," Watt said.

U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, said he's met with faith groups, Latino advocates, business organizations and more, and he expects the contacts to continue. Many are making their pitches in person. Young farmers from across the state visited congressional offices on Capitol Hill this week to talk about the need for more immigrant labor, along with immigration advocates from Charlotte to press the cause of foreign workers and their families.

Christopher Simmons, vice president for federal relations at Duke University, said he'll try to humanize his contacts with members of Congress by having students or professors who are personally affected by the immigration bill go to Washington.

The university wants to ensure that it can bring in the types of skilled workers and graduate students it needs, and Simmons said the current bill might not do that.

Marisol Jimenez McGee, advocacy director at El Pueblo in Raleigh, was in Washington a week ago and has a return trip planned in June. Recently, she has been in almost daily conference calls with other groups, planning ways to get their messages to lawmakers.

Jimenez McGee said that in the next few weeks, when lawmakers are back in their home districts, she will pull together groups of Latinos to talk about immigration reform and organize public action days to draw attention to immigrant workers.

For those residents who haven't contacted Congress personally, Father Brant has other ideas: "I've told my people what they can do is pray like crazy this week."

Washington correspondent Barbara Barrett can be reached at (202) 383-0012 or bbarrett@mcclatchydc.com.

Sounds like their phones are getting jammed, lets hope they get alot of BOOOING and HISSING this week, its time to wake up congress!
Burr, Craig, Kennedy gotta be one in every crowd!

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To everybody out there hanging in the backround yes you!! we invite you to...
let your voices be heard, Its time to get involved, calls, faxes, and e-mails, post at the link below to let everyone know what you are hearing, it helps our leaders to make decisions on what steps to take next. Lets let congress know what real Americans Want!!

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... c&p=363412

Check out Operation Bring it Home also and get your home towns involved!!

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=63288

If anyone can't find information for contacting senators or not sure what to do, just ask, someone will help you, We have lots 0f nice people just waiting to help you!!

HINT: EASY WAY TO HELP OUT.....When you post on another site with good patriotic Americans leave behind a Momentous message, the link to ALIPAC ( http://www.alipac.us/index.php ).
Any donations to help keep ALIPAC afloat will be much appreciated

U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, said he's met with faith groups, Latino advocates, business organizations and more, and he expects the contacts to continue. Many are making their pitches in person.


David Price is my rep. Please take note of what he said. He's met with all sorts of pro-open borders special interest groups but not average constituents! I know this for a fact, as I brought a group in to meet with his staff a while back and was told the same thing.

It is essential that everyone make the effort to visit these people in person. They are being visited by special interest groups in local district offices as well as DC, groups that have their own lobbyists, but individual Americans have no presence in these offices!!!! Keep in mind too that the local offices handle much of the immigration paperwork, so they constantly have non-citizens parading through their offices.

You must go visit so they are reminded that they represent YOU!

Aside from quotes of lawmakers and media, there are two organizations cited in this heavily biased article... two organizations for the illegals and one lone 71 year old man in Chapel Hill writing e-mails.

Nice picture eh?

I spoke to one of the 'reporters' that worked on this piece this morning. The Raleigh News & Observer is such a political rag and most of the state knows it.

W

I think they need to hear in person that they need to start reprsenting the people and not special interest groups.

I think people also don't realize how powerful their appearance in a local office is. Just because your congressman is not in that office does not mean they don't hear what is going on there, it does make a difference make no mistake about it, let yourself be seen and heard, the message will be relayed, and right now your message has never been needed more.GO TO YOUR CONGRESSMAN/WOMANS LOCAL OFFICE! PLEASE

Really unbalanced article. I sent email to journalists -- pointed out
that Burr's office told me calls were overwhelmingly againsts. So
did Dole. The lone 71 year old crank sending emails didn't quite
portray that picture, did it?

Also, I ask them every time when are they going to report El Pueblo's
funding is from NC taxpayers which is used to finance lobbyists.

Originally Posted by dem4labor

Really unbalanced article. I sent email to journalists -- pointed out
that Burr's office told me calls were overwhelmingly againsts. So
did Dole. The lone 71 year old crank sending emails didn't quite
portray that picture, did it?

Also, I ask them every time when are they going to report El Pueblo's
funding is from NC taxpayers which is used to finance lobbyists.

Can't wait for their responses.

U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, said he's met with faith groups, Latino advocates, business organizations and more, and he expects the contacts to continue. Many are making their pitches in person. Young farmers from across the state visited congressional offices on Capitol Hill this week to talk about the need for more immigrant labor, along with immigration advocates from Charlotte to press the cause of foreign workers and their families.

I believe that the majority of the American people have NEVER been taught that THEY HAVE THE RIGHT to be seen & heard.

They've no idea that THEY should be the ones WALKING INTO THE OFFICES of the very people who they've elected and whose salaries they pay with their hard earned tax dollars!!