Thread: Bad things happening ... Your action needed more than ever

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Sunday 5FEB06 9 p.m. EST

Bush, lobbyists & Kennedy doubling their open-borders efforts -- your actions can stop them

DEAR FRIENDS OF SENSIBLE IMMIGRATION,

We're not surprised but ... Nearly everything has turned for the worse in Washington right now.

Amnesties, massive guestworker programs and increased permanent immigration are all on the table right now.

If all 135,000 of you would take at least one of the actions listed below this week, Washington could be somewhat of a different place by the end of the week -- a little less dangerous, a little more hopeful.

You know it is really easy to take most of the actions we offer you. Please take one of them now.

What about the State of Union speech? And what about the House Majority Leader election and the President's barnstorming for more foreign workers across the country? A lot of you have been asking us those questions. We answer them later in this email.

But first, please look at these actions I'm requesting.

1. Go to your Action Buffet and take as many actions there as possible

Each of you has a corkboard with faxes and phone requests tacked there based on where you live, what your particular Members of Congress need to hear right now and what you have told us in our Interest Survey about your interests..

www.NumbersUSA.com/actionbuffet
That is the link to your personalized Action Buffet.

2. Act every time this week you get a NEW FAX email (with direct link)

Nearly every time Anne Manetas posts a new fax on your personal Action Board, our computer sends an email to you announcing the new fax.

That email has an explanation for why we are asking for the fax, but most importantly it has a link that takes you directly to that fax.

Some of you have written complaining that you get a lot of duplicate emails from us. Look closer. All the "new fax" emails look similar but each one is announcing a different fax (with a different link) -- and each of those faxes needs attention.

Please don't wait for an Alert message from me. All this week and month, we will be sending you notices of highly customized faxes based on your own interests and location. Be ready.
in this email:
1. Go to your Action Buffet and take as many actions there as possible

2. Each time you get an email announcing a fax to send this week, please act immediately

3. Take the Interest Survey so you will see more fax and other action opportunities

4. Pres. Bush's true immigration plan -- flood all occupations with more foreign workers

5. Most Senators of both Parties are backing Bush's war on the American worker

6. NumbersUSA's national Press Release during the State of the Union address

7. State of Union and Democratic response, nonetheless, is a sign of improvement

8. Chamber of Commerce's pick won House Majority Leader race
.
actions in brief:
Refer all friends to the NumbersUSA.com website to get them involved.
www.NumbersUSA.com

Go to your personalized Action Buffet and take the actions listed there:
www.NumbersUSA.com/actionbuffet
.
donate now:
This faxing system is 100% financed by the voluntary generosity of the 135,000-
plus Americans who use it.

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

3. Take the Interest Survey so you will see more faxes and other action opportunities

If you haven't taken the Action Buffet Interest Survey, you already have been missing out on a lot of specialized action opportunities.

Here's the link to the Interest Survey:
http://www.numbersusa.com/survey?action=longlist

It takes less than a minute to take the political party and philsophy section that may be the most important to take. And the whole survey can be taken in less than 15 minutes.

The purpose of the survey (which remains entirely confidential) is for you to identify areas where your faxes might have more weight than the average American.

For example, we really need you to fill out the RELIGION part of the survey so we can ask you for help if the religious group with which you are affiliated is lobbying hard for open borders. A lot of the religious lobbies are doing that right now. The people who can have the most influence on these religious Washington offices are the people in their own organizations. We need Lutherans talking to Lutherans, Jews talking to Jews and Catholics talking to Catholics, for example.

We also need to know which of you can write to the Chamber of Commerce and to Members of Congress from the standpoint of your being business owners, business executives and members of business organizations.

We especially need you to take the OCCUPATION and the MEMBERSHIP parts of the Survey. The MEMBERSHIP page is very important to us also because we need to know which of you are members of environmental groups and can speak as ardent conservationists.

And it is particularly important that you identify yourself to us as either a Democrat, Republican or Swing Voter since we put up a lot of faxes that go to only one of those groups so they can wield influence in the most effective way.

4. Pres. Bush's true immigration plan -- flood all occupations with more foreign workers

The day after his State of the Union address, Pres. Bush began speaking around the country about the need to open up America's occupations to far more foreign workers.

From the sounds of the last week, this is one of the four or five most important things on his agenda.

For all of his talk in the fall about tightening the borders, he has proven the cynics right the last week by showing that he will give Americans secure borders only if Congress gives him massive new flows of foreign labor.

Pres. Bush talks repeatedly about lower-skilled jobs that Americans WON'T do and about higher-skilled jobs that Americans CAN'T do. To hear him talk, Americans are either too lazy or too incapable to any longer do the work to keep this nation going.

NumbersUSA believes that, for the most part, the American labor is available to do nearly all the jobs of the country.

But to the extent that there may be jobs with such low pay, benefits and working conditions that Americans WON'T do them, importing more foreign labor into them will just ensure that the jobs remain below American standards.

And to the extent that we may not have quite enough American kids going into certain high-tech and other high-skill fields, filling the occupations with foreign workers just further drives kids away from those fields.

But the President said this in his State of the Union address (and it has been quoted favorably in newspapers across the land):

"We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy - even though this economy could not function without them. All these are forms of economic retreat, and they lead in the same direction - toward a stagnant and second-rate economy."

Well, that was pretty maddening, most importantly because it isn't true. There is no indication that the average American would be worse off economically if the 50-million-plus foreign workers and their families weren't here.

And it is certain that most Americans' overall quality of life would be far better without all the congestion in traffic, schools, housing and open spaces caused by having tens of millions additional people in the country.

Please understand, though, that I am not saying that the individual legal immigrants who are here are personally to blame for the congestion that their overall presence has caused -- or that I wish they would leave. But policymakers need to consider just how much more congested they want to make our lives as Americans.

The President's comments showed that he doesn't tend to think about individual Americans' quality of life but instead focuses primarily on gross economic growth as a measure of his Administration's success.

The focus of the President is on THE ECONOMY but not on the American people the economy is supposed to serve. He could import 10 million more foreign workers and leave millions of Americans living on dramatically reduced wages or government subsidies and THE ECONOMY would indeed be larger. But would the federal government have fulfilled its obligation to THE PEOPLE?

If you want to send faxes that address these issues, you need to check your interests in the Action Buffet Interest Survey at:
http://www.numbersusa.com/survey?action=longlist

You won't see many of the faxes in this area unless you have taken the survey.

5. Most Senators of both Parties are backing Bush's war on the American worker

The Bush Administration philosophy of disregarding the needs of American workers while rushing to import from the pool of hundreds of millions of eager foreign job applicants is shared AND LED by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and is followed by what appears to be the majority of Senators in both of their parties.

Not by coincidence, this is the philosophy promoted day and night here in Washington by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and small armies of other corporation lobbyists who have said they will not accept anything less than a massive increase in foreign workers out of this Congress this year.

You and your faxes, phone calls and raising our issues at public events are the only power that can compete against the corporate lobbyists' money flowing to the Senators.

The Senate is filled with multi-millionaires who long ago ceased to know what it is like to be an average American -- and by others who spend so much time with multi-millionaires raising money for their campaigns that they seldom spend time with ordinary folks. Most Senators have no idea what immigration is doing to their constituents and don't give their constituents a chance to tell them.

But as bleak as the unequal political battle looks, we have strong evidence that your constituency pressure can turn enough Senators that we will be able to stop the plan to force American workers in all occupations to compete with the rest of the world for their jobs.

6. NumbersUSA's national Press Release during the State of the Union address

While the President was speaking, we sent this statement to reporters nationwide.

Please feel free to copy and share this release with any reporters, talk show hosts or politicians whom you think might benefit.

################################
Contact: Caroline Espinosa, caroline@numbersusa.com

January 31, 2006

Americans Need Jobs, Not Foreign Competition

NumbersUSA Reminds President
That Foreign Labor Undercuts
Economy and Public Confidence

WASHINGTON, DC -- NumbersUSA urges President Bush to recognize that large scale importing of foreign workers will depress wages and deny job opportunities for the most vulnerable Americans, destabilizing the overall economy. Polling has shown that Americans are most concerned about the economy and jobs, and the majority believes the economy is currently on the wrong track.

"As President Bush addresses the nation tonight, I hope he will remember the 14 million Americans who cannot find full-time jobs in the current economy." said Roy Beck, Executive Director of NumbersUSA. "It would be the height of callousness to advocate a massive foreign worker program to an economy already marked by stagnant wages in many sectors and by falling labor participation rates among several American demographic groups."

Both unskilled and skilled Americans would be hurt by the President's past immigration proposals to match willing workers from other countries with willing employers here in the United States. Severe outsourcing, uncontrolled illegal immigration and government-mandated immigration four times higher than the traditional average have worsened underemployment and wage stagnation among Americans on both ends of the employment spectrum.

"Recent news is filled with stories of the elimination of high-pay, high-benefits jobs and of the increase of lower-pay and lower-benefits jobs. The last thing that Americans and their economy need is a new flood of foreign workers that will accelerate all the worst tendencies in our present economy," said Beck.

Enforcement of our immigration laws is absolutely necessary to ensure Americans' economic and physical security and a successful struggle for living-wage jobs. Without full-scale efforts in mandatory workplace verification, implementation of the entry-exit system, and increased cooperation between state, local, and federal law enforcement officials, the rise in foreign workers will continue to undermine the economy and undermine the public's confidence in the Bush Administration's handling of it.

"Last year, the President vowed to protect our borders, and we saw progress on that promise when he supported the House of Representatives in December as it passed the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act. I am hopeful that his commitment to enforcement and border security will be evident when the President's budget comes out next week," said Beck. "This year - a pivotal election year - Americans will be watching to see if the President sees his promise through to fruition in addition to following the will of the American people who are concerned about the very real threat American workers face from foreign labor. The President should follow the lead of House Republicans and stand up to the Chamber of Commerce and its push to use immigrant labor to depress Americans' wages."

7. State of Union and Democratic response, nonetheless, are signs of improvement

Despite Pres. Bush's behavior since the State of the Union and despite the problem with his mention of immigration in the speech, constituency pressure has to claim credit for his comments not being a lot worse.

Overall, I feel that Pres. Bush's comments about immigration and Virginia Gov. Kaine's Democratic Response were signs of great victories for grassroots citizen action against open borders.

I say that, not because they said particularly good things, but because they both were careful to avoid saying most of the really bad things that the leadership of both Parties really prefer (as evidenced by comments from top leaders of both Parties in recent weeks).

Yet last Tuesday night, the Republican Bush and Democrat Kaine steered far clear of stating such radicalism.

When the President got to specifics about what immigration policy should look like, this is what he said:

"Keeping America competitive requires an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values, and serves the interests of our economy. Our Nation needs orderly and secure borders. To meet this goal, we must have stronger immigration enforcement and border protection. And we must have a rational, humane guest worker program that rejects amnesty, allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally, and reduces smuggling and crime at the border."

Notice how Bush didn't say that immigration should serve "national interests" as we always say. Rather, he says immigration should serve the "interests of our economy."

Nonetheless, compare these statements with five years ago when he was calling for a citizenship amnesty for illegal aliens.

Bush and his staff have been beaten back by so much pressure from people like you that they are intimidated when the whole nation is watching from making the same requests that once felt safe. They waited until they were on the road in somewhat out-of-the-way places to reveal what they really want on immigration.

Those of you who have sent hundreds of thousands of faxes through NumbersUSA to the White House -- and repeatedly make phone calls to the switchboards there -- over the last five years deserve a lot of credit for the public backing down we are seeing.

As for the Democratic response, Kaine had said on radio earlier in the day that he would talk about several things, including immigration.

We immediately sent a request to many of you who have taken our political interest survey and identified yourselves as Democrats. We asked you to call Kaine's office and warn him against painting the Democrats as opposing American workers, and to emphasize the importance of proving the ability to enforce immigration laws before even talking about big guestworker programs.

We got reports back from you indicating that the Virginia governor's phones were ringing all afternoon.

Here is what Kaine said that night in remarks that were reported to have been finished late in the day:

"The failure of the federal government to implement and enforce a rational immigration policy has resulted in a confusing patchwork of state and local efforts. Of course, we should welcome those who seek to lawfully join and contribute to our American family. And we must. But the same time, we must ensure that our homeland defense efforts begin with consistent federal action to protect our borders."

Amazing.

No calls for "legalization" or guestworker programs. The emphasis was on security and enforcement.

This is further indication that some national Democratic leaders are beginning to understand that it is not to their political advantage to be seen as the party of amnesty and open borders (even if many of the top leaders really aspire to those goals).

8. Chamber of Commerce's pick won House Majority Leader race

The race to replace Tom Delay as the Republican Majority Leader in the House was between Rep. Blunt (R-MO) and Rep. Boehner (R-OH).

We tipped you off early that the two had wildly different approaches to immigration, based on their recent record.

Blunt had stood up to the Chamber of Commerce lobbyists and, as acting Majority Leader, ushered through a tough immigration bill that greatly increased enforcement against illegal immigration and reduced legal immigration.

Boehner, on the other hand, was one of only a handful of Republicans last month who voted against the bill and backed the Chamber of Commerce's line that it should be defeated for being anti-business.

Blunt was far ahead of Boehner in the first secret-ballot vote of all House Republicans last week. But a major campaign by many conservative political groups had urged votes for a third candidate, Rep. Shadegg (R-AZ), who they saw as more purely conservative. After the first vote, Shadegg dropped out. Apparently all of Shadegg's supporters switched to the Chamber of Commerce's Boehner who, in an upset, narrowly defeated Blunt.

Boehner has now taken over the #2 position in the House. Blunt remains in the #3 position as Majority Whip.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) the chairman of the 92-Member Immigration Reform Caucus has told reporters that he hopes Boehner will moderate his immigration positions now that he is supposed to represent the majority of the Republicans in the House.

We hope so, too.

One point of hope is that immigration did not appear to be the factor in the GOP Representatives who voted for Boehner. Rather, they seemed far more interested in breaking with Tom Delay who was Blunt's mentor. We can hope that Boehner's supporters will rebel if he starts to try to lead them down the Chamber of Commerce path on immigration.

Boehner has a B-minus immigration grade. Not terrible. But he totally misrepresented H.R. 4437's provisions requiring all businesses to use an electronic system to verify whether new hires are illegal aliens. If he isn't willing to go after outlaw businesses, there will be no credible immigration enforcement in this country.

Boehner was part of former Speaker Newt Gingrich's leadership team. Gingrich earned an Immigration Grade of D, as he was a major reason why our side failed to gain reforms in 1996.

Our main hope that the Senate would not succeed in passing a huge amnesty for illegal aliens and a huge increase in foreign workers was that the former lineup of House GOP leaders would refuse to allow such a bill to come back to the House.

With Boehner now in the driver's seat with Speaker Hastert (R-IL) -- who has a major weakness for guestworkers for his District's suburban Chicago landscapers -- the political equation has changed. The corporate open-borders lobbyists have been gleeful about their change of fortune after everything looked so cloudy with the passage of H.R. 4437 in December.

We have our work cut out for us.

PLEASE STAY ALERT AND WATCH FOR OUR ALERTS,

-- ROY

Do you think we could get NumbersUSA to support a mass faxing to Republican representatives, telling them that if amnesty/guest worker is passed by Congress, that we will vote against all Republicans come November.

Now THAT sounds like a PLAN...let 'em know just how WE feel...

RR

Originally Posted by WavTek

Do you think we could get NumbersUSA to support a mass faxing to Republican representatives, telling them that if amnesty/guest worker is passed by Congress, that we will vote against all Republicans come November.

I would go onto the NumbersUSA website and contact them about what you just said. I think they do something to that effect already, but I would contact them and hash it out with them and see what they have to say. I can't see why they wouldn't support doing something like that, but hey I can't speak for them, so go ahead and talk to them about it.

You and your faxes, phone calls and raising our issues at public events are the only power that can compete against the corporate lobbyists' money flowing to the Senators.

Dxd suggests we concentrate on our (ONLY?) friend in the Senate, Jeff Sessions, asking him to fillibuster. That sounds like a good strategy to me.

Originally Posted by DcSA

Dxd suggests we concentrate on our (ONLY?) friend in the Senate, Jeff Sessions, asking him to fillibuster. That sounds like a good strategy to me.

Richard Byrd is also a friend in the Senate. It was he who three years ago I think fillibustered the Section 245i amnesty.