Thread: Power of Public Opposition

Failure of the Bush-Senate Illegal Alien Amnesty Bill Demonstrates the
Posted : Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:00:01 GMT
Author : Federation for American Immigration Reform
Category : PressRelease
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WASHINGTON, June 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The failure of a bill, on a procedural vote in the Senate, that would have granted amnesty to tens of millions of illegal aliens and flooded the U.S. labor market with millions more guest workers, was a great victory for the American public, declared the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The bill, S. 1348, which was negotiated secretly by senators from both parties with the backing of the Bush White House, was opposed overwhelmingly by the American people who mounted an unprecedented grassroots effort to block it.

For three weeks, a determined group of powerful senators fought fiercely to defend their legislation, but in the end intense public opposition forced the Senate to table the proposal. In pulling S. 1348 from consideration, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other proponents of amnesty and guest workers, essentially conceded that the public's ire was too great for them to ignore.

"The American public simply does not buy the idea that in order to enforce our immigration laws, we have to make deals with the people who break our laws," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "The public adamantly opposes rewarding people who have come to this country illegally and undermining American workers through guest worker schemes designed to provide business with low wage labor. Most of all the public felt that it was being lied to, yet again, with another bunch of worthless promises about future immigration enforcement."

The failure of the Senate to pass S. 1348 does not mean that this issue will go away, or that the American public will accept the status quo, warned FAIR. While additional legislation is needed to make our laws against illegal immigration more effective, there are countless laws already on the books that, if enforced, would go a long way toward alleviating the illegal immigration crisis.

"The rejection of this bill is a great credit to the determination of the American public to prevent a handful of senators and an unpopular lame duck president from radically altering this nation without the consent of the people," said Stein. "The Bush-Senate legislation would have had incalculable social, economic, cultural and environment consequences for the American people and their children, all of which would have been brought about by a bill that was negotiated in secret and with no public hearings.

"In recent history, it would be hard to find a single issue or a single piece of legislation that generated the kind of public response that this attempt to hijack America's future did," continued Stein. "The people of this country deserve a lot of credit for taking their roles as citizens in a functioning democracy seriously and stopping this disastrous piece of legislation. The response of the American public over the past three weeks demonstrates that public opinion, when constructively channeled, can make a real difference." Federation for American Immigration Reform



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