Thread: ALIPAC: Fast help needed collecting latest info

Friends,

Please post me any links to articles that contain the latest info on the Amnesty Ag Jobs legislation in DC so I can move quickly to get an alert out / update for our troops.

Last I heard, new vote scheduled for Wed?

W

Thanks for the alert -will be following this very carefully.

Make more calls today folks, send faxes -hit it.

Im clearing the emails from this weekend and just read this from Numbers

FRIENDS,THE AMNESTY BILL IS FAR WORSE THAN WE TOLD YOU.

Because the House of Representatives unexpectedly delayed the Iraq supplemental spending bill late Thursday, the full Senate won't be allowed today to vote on the amnesty bill that the Senate Appropriations Committee unexpectedly took up and approved Thursday.

It now looks like the full Senate won't be allowed to vote on the amnesty for around 1.3 million illegal alien ag workers (plus their families) until next Wednesday.

That gives us some time to beat this atrocity.

I don't need to tell you that we can beat this amnesty ONLY if all of you send the faxes and make the phone calls we've posted on your Action Buffet corkboard. Please go there now.

And ONLY if you enlist as many of your friends, relatives, neighbors and colleagues as possible by forwarding this Alert to them.

Especially important is that you pick up the phone and make the calls to your two Senators that we've requested.

202-224-3121

THE INCREDIBLE INGREDIENTS OF THE SENATE'S NOXIOUS AMNESTY STEW

Rosemary Jenks (our Vice President, Government Relations) just called me after finishing reading the Iraq supplemental spending bill as it came out of committee. It would:

Grant a three-year work visa followed by a permanent greencard to all illegal aliens who have been working as shepherds, goat herders and dairy herders.

Grant a five-year work visa to the estimated 1.3 million illegal aliens working in other agricultural jobs -- plus all of their families. There is no instruction on what happens after the five years.

Grant a tripling of the maximum number of H-2B visas for lower skill, non-agricultural seasonal workers.

Grant industries an extra 218,000 additional permanent green cards for skilled foreign workers.

Friends, perhaps you are thinking what I'm thinking: Don't these Senators know that we are in an economic recession, or close to it? Don't they know that unemployment rates have been going up and that industries across the country are shedding both skilled and unskilled jobs?

If ever you doubted that U.S. Senators live lives disconnected from ordinary Americans, you could see it Thursday as 17 of them fell all over themselves to drastically increase the number of foreign workers allowed to hold U.S. jobs!

RIDICULOUS CLAIMS ABOUT RUNNING OUT OF FOOD WITHOUT AN AMNESTY

Senators Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) led the way to protect our economy from having to figure out ways to hire some of the 14 million-plus American workers who are trying to find a job but can't.

Especially interesting is their claim that we will fail to harvest crops and feed the world this year without an amnesty for illegal aliens. They made the same claim in each of the last four years. Each time that we beat back the amnesty, the harvests still happened! How many times does Feinstein have to cry wolf (or rotting crops) before people stop paying attention?

Of course, the outlaw businesses that scream for illegal aliens do have more to fear this year because various enforcement policies (federal, state and local) are beginning to drive more and more illegal aliens home.

What we have to constantly remind everybody, though, is that each of these outlaw growers at any time can come clean, go straight and become a legal, patriotic member of the business community by importing any needed foreign ag workers through the H-2A temporary worker program. There is no limit on how many they can import as long as they pay them decently and ensure that they go home.

The North Carolina Growers Association has used the H-2A visa program for years and opposes all efforts at amnesty for illegal alien ag workers. If the program works fine for North Carolina farmers, why do farmers in other part of the country insist that only illegal aliens will fit the bill?

THE VERY LOW CRITERIA FOR QUALIFYING FOR AN AG AMNESTY

Rosemary says you don't have to have spent much time in the fields to qualify for Feinstein and Craig's amnesty.

You only have to meet ONE of the following three criteria to get the amnesty:

Earned $7,000 working in agriculture during the 2004-2007 period.

Or worked 863 hours in agriculture during the 2004-2007 period.

Or worked at least a little bit in agriculture on 150 different days during the 2004-2007 period.

That amounts to an average of $1,750 per year ...

.. or 216 hours per year (the equivalent of 4 hours per week) ...

.. or parts of 37 days per year.

DO THEY THINK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE STUPID AND THAT WE COULD POSSIBLY ACCEPT THAT ILLEGAL ALIENS WORKING THAT LITTLE IN AGRICULTURE ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE SURVIVAL OF AGRI-BUSINESS IN AMERICA!!!!!!

The answer is that they really hope we are that stupid or just incredibly unfocused. All the right-wing business lobbyists, leftist organizations, religious groups and news media who tried to force the amnesty last year are cheering this thing on.

We beat them last year because the American people FOCUSED for a few weeks and told the U.S. Senators who is their boss.

Will you please do everything you can to enlist a small army in your community to fight this?

Please keep coming back to our home page several times a day to read the latest news on the Senate amnesty battle.

THANKS,

Roy Beck

William

here is the link I posted the other day with how the people in the appropriations voted

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115708.html


and this is the link started last Thursday on it also

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115554.html


TOLL FREE NUMBER 866-340-9281

NumbersUSA: (May 19) At last week's markup of the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee committed an outrageous act of disrespect for our men and women in uniform and to the citizens of this country by adopting an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that gives amnesty to illegal-alien agricultural workers. The amendment indicates a maximum of 1.35 million illegal alien ag workers could obtain "emergency agricultural worker status" for a five-year period. Since their families also can obtain this status, it is estimated that the total number receiving an amnesty would reach 3 million. The committee also adopted other immigration-related amendments, including one that drastically expands the H-2B visa program for non-agricultural seasonal workers.

The full Senate may begin work on the bill on Tuesday, May 20, so please contact your Senators now to urge them to work to strip the amnesty from the Iraq spending bill on the floor, as well as the other amendments increasing immigration levels.
http://www.numbersusa.com/index

http://www.heritage.org/research/Immigration/wm1685.cfm .

AgJOBS Immigration Bill Is Stealth Amnesty
by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D. and Diem Nguyen
WebMemo #1685
The debate over immigration amnesty could soon return to the Senate floor. According to press reports, Senator Diane Feinstein (D–CA) plans to attach the proposed Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2007 (AgJOBS) to the Farm Bill Extension Act of 2007. The AgJOBS bill is all too similar to the comprehensive immigration reform bill that was rejected in Congress last spring, which would have granted amnesty to millions of people who are unlawfully present in the United States. Amnesty would worsen the immigration problem in America, encouraging more illegal border crossings and undermining the credibility of American immigration laws. Congress should reform and expand programs for visiting agricultural workers rather than use farm bill legislation to pass stealth amnesty.

Amnesty Returns

The AgJOBS proposal is a remnant of the failed comprehensive immigration bill, to which it was originally attached. Since that effort failed, AgJOBS advocates have been looking for an alternative vehicle for their bill.

AgJOBS shares the following flaws with the marred comprehensive reform legislation. The bill grants amnesty to agricultural workers who are currently unlawfully present in the United States. According to estimates, approximately 1.5 million workers would be granted "legalization," as well as an additional 1.8 million family members.

In addition, the bill requires immigrant workers to apply for citizenship. Failure to apply for citizenship would result in their deportation. Forcing such choices is itself objectionable. It also makes no sense: Currently, many migrant workers choose to keep permanent residence in their home country; this requirement would not allow such flexibility.

The bill alsomandates that workers cannot be fired without "just cause."This vague standard would likely result in employers being bogged down in litigation.

A Better Way

The agricultural sector in the United States does require seasonal workers, but amnesty is not the answer. Real, sensible immigration reform would help employers hire the workers they need by doing the following:
Not granting amnesty to illegal workers.
Simplifying and expanding existing H2-A programs in a manner that meets the labor demands of the marketplace and respects the rights of individual employees.

Conclusion

Attaching AgJOBS to the farm bill is another attempt at stealth amnesty and would create more problems than it would solve. Congress should reject such approaches and instead concentrate on real reform of existing visa programs, creating credible legal alternatives to illegal border crossing and unlawful presence.

James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Senior Research Fellow in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Diem Nguyen is Research Assistant in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Morning W , Get R Done

NumbersUSA report added to the homepage

http://www.alipac.us/article3201.html

I know the alert has been sent already, but here is a press release (propaganda) from the pro-amnesty Western Growers Association:
---------

Western Growers Association urges Congress to pass emergency agricultural relief act
May 19, 2008 10:26 AM

The Western Growers Association (WGA) is looking to the full Congress to pass the Emergency Agricultural Relief Act (EARA), which was passed May 15 on a bipartisan basis as an amendment to the supplemental war-spending bill.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) offered up the amendment, which was approved on a 17-12 vote by the Senate Committee on Appropriations, to help ensure a legal and stable, agricultural workforce.

“We cannot thank Senator Feinstein enough for her statesmanship and leadership in recognizing that without a stable, economical workforce, there will be no agriculture in this country,â€

More propaganda from a pro-amnesty special interest group. We should know what they are claiming:

Emergency legislation designed to relieve labor shortage in agriculture
May 19, 2008 10:29 AM

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee on May 15 approved legislation sponsored by U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho) that would provide emergency relief to the nation’s current agriculture labor shortage. The legislation was offered as an amendment to the Iraq supplemental spending bill.

According to a statement from Sen. Feinstein, the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act does not provide a path to citizenship or a green card. However, it would grant temporary, limited immigration status for experienced farm workers who would be required to continue to work in American agriculture for the next five years.

The legislation is designed to address the perennial shortage of agriculture workers. These shortages have caused fruit to rot on trees and farming operations to move to Mexico, according to the statement.

“This amendment provides a consistent, stable workforce for an industry that depends almost exclusively on undocumented labor — agriculture. And it provides temporary status for those who have worked in agriculture and who will continue to work in agriculture for a number of years,â€

– Requires that workers pay a $250 fine plus processing fees

It's a great deal...especially when some are flush with enough cash to pay a coyote 10 grand or so to successfully get here.