Your phone call TODAY could save E-Verify. Keep Calling

Updated Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 7:15 AM

The Senate will resume consideration of the Omnibus spending bill (HR 1105) at 10 a.m. today, although votes are not expected before this afternoon. Because of your activism, Sen. Sessions' Amendment 604 is on the list of amendments to be debated and voted on today. Your phone calls to your Senators are especially important to ensure that E-Verify opponents don't kill the 5-year re-authorization by just "running out of time."

Call your Senators now at 202-224-3121.

Check your ActionBuffet for talking points, and here are a few suggestions:

* Do NOT vote for "cloture" to shut off debate on the Omnibus before the E-Verify amendment comes up for a vote.
* A vote for cloture before an E-Verify vote will be graded by NumbersUSA as a vote AGAINST E-Verify and a vote FOR hiring illegal aliens.
* The 5-year reauthorization of E-Verify is NON-controversial. E-Verify has been praised by Pres. Obama, Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi as an essential part of our system of trying to ensure that Americans are not pushed out of jobs by businesses hiring illegal aliens. We're especially concerned about all Democrats and Republicans such as Specter, Snowe and Collins who are inclined to vote for the Omnibus bill.

Your message is something like:

"Please don't let Sen. Reid run out the clock before this critical amendment gets a vote. That is what happened on the Stimulus bill. It is simply unacceptable to keep E-Verify from getting a public up-or-down vote.

"Any vote the Senator casts that keeps E-Verify from a public vote will be treated as an anti-E-Verify vote by NumbersUSA and its 900,000 members."

BE PREPARED TO COUNTER THIS LIE FROM STAFFERS:

We heard from many of you on Friday that your Senators were telling you to relax because the Omnibus already has an extension of E-Verify in it. Some even suggested that the extension is three years long.

Beware of half-truths!

Here is the whole truth that you tell staffers who try to tell you that Sessions' Amendment 604 is unnecessary:

1. "Division J of the Omnibus" currently includes an extension of E-Verify ONLY through Sep. 30, 2009 -- in other words, only six months.

2. Amendment 604 extends E-Verify for 5 years!

Thanks to all of you who rose to the occasion and made emergency phone calls to the Senate last week.

Partly because of that, the Senate could not reach 60 votes Thursday to shut off debate on the giant Omnibus spending bill.

That means we have another chance to help our Senate allies to force a vote on Sessions' Amendment 604 to the omnibus (HR 1105).

PLEASE PHONE YOUR TWO SENATORS NOW AND URGE THEM TO SUPPORT THE 'SESSIONS E-VERIFY AMENDMENT.'

The Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121.

Sen. Sessions' Amendment (#604) to the spending omnibus bill (HR 1105) would reauthorize the E-Verify employment verification system for a period of five years. However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has consistently prevented him from doing so.

It is interesting that Senator Reid has been so unwilling to allow a vote on E-Verify, a program he claims to support. In a letter to a constituent Senator Reid recently wrote,

"Our country is facing difficult economic challenges and I am working hard to make sure that we can get Nevadans back to work. ... I support reauthorization of the E-Verify program, as well as immigration reform that is tough on lawbreakers, fair to taxpayers and practical to implement."

-- Letter from Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), 2MAR09


http://www.numbersusa.com/content/news/ ... dment.html