Newsletter
Week
of
Sept
20
This Issue: The prospect of amnesty takes a few twists and turns over the course of the week


Yesterday, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte restated his support for a DREAM Act-like amnesty that would grant citizenship to illegal aliens who were brought to the United States at a young age and a blanket amnesty for most of the remaining illegal aliens as long as it did not include a special path to citizenship.

If this can be considered good news for amnesty supporters, it was the lone piece of good news all week.

For most of the week, the talk was about halting deportations and "Plan B". On the Spanish-language network Telemundo, Pres. Barack Obama was asked if he would halt deportations for all illegal aliens the same way he halted deportations for the Dreamers through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He rejected that notion, noting that he didn't have the legal authority to halt all deportations. That prompted a small demonstration on Wednesday that included about half a dozen illegal aliens handcuffing themselves to the White House perimeter fence calling for an end to deportations.
Meanwhile, many of the pro-amnesty action groups shifted their focus from passing a blanket amnesty to blocking the SAFE Act in the House of Representatives. The SAFE Act, written by House Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), would strengthen federal interior enforcement and allow local law enforcement to assist the feds in enforcing immigration laws. One brochure that was distributed in Atlanta even called the resistance to the SAFE Act as "Plan B." In other words, if illegal aliens aren't going to get an amnesty, then they're going to ensure that the feds don't enforce the laws already on the books or write tougher laws.
Big Business, however, specifically the tech lobby, continued its push for a blanket amnesty and the doubling of legal immigration numbers. Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg was in Washington D.C. on Thursday pushing for the Schumer-Rubio-Obama amnesty bill, S.744, because of the massive increases in foreign tech workers called for in the bill. Of course, the House of Representatives passed a bill in the previous Congress that gave the tech industry almost everything they wanted, while also eliminating the Visa Lottery, but the bill fell on deaf ears in the Senate.
We were really looking forward to the scheduled House recess next week as an opportunity for you to tell your Members of Congress in person how you stand on immigration. Unfortunately, we learned yesterday afternoon that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) cancelled the recess since Congress has yet to pass a bill to fund the federal government beyond September 30.

The House calendar is still short on legislative days between now and the end of the year, and there are many more pressing issues facing the House this fall, but as a blog post on a pro-amnesty website on Thursday noted, there's still plenty of time this year for the House to move forward on immigration. And any immigration bill passed by the House, whether good or bad, could be used by the Senate to move S.744.
Thankfully, there are a few outspoken champions in the House. On Wednesday, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) drafted a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) urging him to stand by his proclamation to deal with immigration on a piece-by-piece basis. The letter asks Speaker Boehner to publicly commit to not conference with the Senate on any bill that takes a comprehensive approach to dealing with immigration.
If you have a Republican House Rep., we've posted a fax and phone note on your Action Board that asks your Congressman to sign onto the Stockman letter. If you've yet to send the fax or make the call, please do so today! It's extremely important that even the strongest anti-amnesty supporters in Congress get the support they need from their own constituents. Rep. Stockman is only accepting signatures for this letter this week, so please take action today!
chris chmielenski
Fri, Sept 20th