Thread: NumbersUSA Alert!!!

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA

Date: Wednesday 11APR07 3:45 a.m. EDT

You are creating the possibility for a defensive victory against amnesty & greencard increases

DEAR FRIENDS,

This week has brought the strongest sign yet that all of your faxing and phoning have been having an effect in preventing a disastrous amnesty for illegal aliens.

The Washington Post reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has told the White House that she won't bring an amnesty bill to a floor vote unless Pres. Bush guarantees at least 70 Republican YES votes!

If she means it -- and why would she publicize this challenge if she didn't? -- our easiest goal for stopping the amnesty is making sure that no more than, say, 50 Republicans are willing to approve a giant amnesty.

That would mean we have to hold onto the anti-amnesty support of 75% of House Republicans. We have always thought we needed to hold on to 90% of them, and that we could do it. If Pelosi sticks to the demand of 70 GOP votes, we would only have to hold onto 65% of Republicans to keep the amnesty from coming to a vote.

Regardless of what insane immigration actions the Senate may take, no bad deed gets to be law without the House agreeing.

Pelosi's challenge is a dream come true for us and validates what you and we have been doing ever since the Democrats took control of the House after the November elections.

Our Action Buffet team has been placing new opportunities for action on your corkboard this week. These actions are designed to reinforce the forces that are causing Pelosi to be so skittish about bringing an amnesty for a vote.


WHY DID PELOSI SET A NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE GOAL FOR HERSELF?


It looks like Speaker Pelosi has been hearing regularly from two kinds of Democrats who are telling her they don't want her to make them vote on an amnesty bill:

1. Democrats who sincerely think high legal and illegal immigration undermines core Democratic principles of protecting workers, the environment and the poor, and who have said they will vote against any "comprehensive" immigration legislation that comes up.

2. Democrats who are in competitive districts and who feel voters may punish them even if they vote NO on amnesty because the voters will be holding them accountable for what they consider a Democratic amnesty.

We have been working with our lobbyists and with mobilizing all of you to persuade at least 50 Democrats in the House that they shouldn't vote for any "comprehensive" legislation. In order to get an amnesty passed, Pelosi would have to replace at least 34 of those 50 votess with Republican votes.

So, why is Pelosi suggesting twice that many Republicans are needed?

Because she feels that if Democrats in the 2008 elections could say that at least a third of House Republicans worked for the "bi-partisan earned legalization bill," vulnerable Democratic House Members could protect themselves in the elections.

This is so different from Speaker Hastert when the Republicans were in power. His somewhat strange motto was that he wouldn't bring a bill to the floor unless the majority of his majority party favored it -- no matter how many votes he could get out of the minority.

But Speaker Pelosi is saying regardless of how many of her own Party favors increased immigration, she won't bring a bill to the floor unless at least one-third of the minority party supports.

Clearly, the millions of faxes and thousands of phone calls over the last year, are creating at least some climate of fear among the open-borders types in Congress.

Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team this week has been meeting widely among House Republicans and reports to me that the Republicans are quite amused by Pelosi's challenge for Pres. Bush to whip the House Republicans into shape. They tell us they just don't see Pres. Bush having any such influence. They don't believe there are even 20 Republican House Members who are wavering at the moment, let alone 70.

We hope they are right. But this is no time to make assumptions. Please make sure that all Republican Representatives know how strongly their constituents feel.

And don't let up for a minute with your pressure on Democratic Representatives so they will continue to tell Speaker Pelosi that bringing up an amnesty bill will seriously hurt the Democrats' chances of holding on to control of the House after 2008.


PRES. BUSH GOES TO MEXICO BORDER TO MAKE IT MUCH MORE CLEAR THAT HE IS 100% BEHIND AN AMNESTY


News reports said this:

Speaking to the Border Patrol in Yuma, Ariz., Bush said it would be impossible to find and deport the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the United States.

"It may sound good. It may make nice sound-bite news. It
won't happen."

Instead, Bush said, those workers who want to stay should be
made to pay a "meaningful penalty" and "meet a reasonable number
of conditions" before being allowed to apply for citizenship.
"Approval would not be automatic," he said.

If there were any doubters of Bush's embrace of amnesty left in the country, there should be none now.

After years of saying that his guestworker plans didn't mean that illegal aliens would get citizenship, the President has now clarified that citizenship for illegal aliens is a necessity.

Of course, his comments were outrageous. There are no politicians and no major advocacy groups that I know of who are advocating deporting all 12 million or more illegal aliens. He always sets up that false dichotomy as if American voters are idiots. It is so insulting.

Notice that he said citizenship should not be automatic. That is a big part of the way that Republican (and a lot of Democrats, too) Senators are trying to justify their support of the new White House amnesty. They claim that they oppose "blanket amnesties" and "automatic citizenship" for illegal aliens. Any time you hear a politician making those promises, you can almost be guaranteed that that politician is supporting an amnesty for illegal aliens.

Thankfully, it sounds like very few Arizona politicians were being fooled by the President. Matthew Benson of the Arizona Republic got these quotes:

"I heard him say the same ol’ thing he always does. It’s always all show, no substance. He’s a lame duck. He will not get anything accomplished. I’d stake my life on it.”
- Ray Borane, mayor of the Arizona border town of Douglas

"There was nothing new today. We’re certainly hopeful he has sufficient influence to get something through Congress.”
- Alfredo Gutierrez, a Democrat and former state senator

"If it looks like amnesty and smells like amnesty, it’s amnesty. It’s simply asinine. The dots don’t connect.”
- Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa

"The president doesn’t know the issue down here like he wants people to think. The people of Arizona are sick and tired of being sick and tired of waiting on the federal government to act.”
- Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Chandler

"All he’s trying to do is introduce a new way to say the same thing. If we give all these people amnesty today, what are we going to do with the people who come tomorrow?”
- Don Goldwater, nephew of Barry Goldwater, a Republican gubernatorial candidate (2006)

"The days of playing politics, of using immigration as a campaign tactic, are over. If we don’t get (immigration reform) done this year, it’s going to be very difficult to get it done in 2008.”
- Rep. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix

"I strongly encourage President Bush to support legislation that deals with the issue of illegal immigration but does not create a new path to citizenship or expand chain migration.”
- U.S. Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz.


Dozens of Members Sign Letter to House Speaker Pelosi Urging Her to Block Amnesty Legislation


Thanks in large part to so many calls from all of you, 97 U.S. Representatives signed that letter that urged Speaker Pelosi to oppose efforts to put the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. on a path to citizenship.

The letter read: "Amnesty hurts vulnerable American workers, burdens American taxpayers, and rewards lawbreakers…And it tells all those who have patiently waited abroad for their turn to come to the United States that they are foolish."


Excellent analysis of Pres. Bush's open borders efforts from the National Review


Defeatist at the Border
Should we surrender on immigration?

By Rich Lowry

Not all incremental progress is equal in the eyes of President Bush. When it occurs in Iraq, it is a sign that we need to forge ahead despite all difficulties. When it occurs on our southern border, it is deemed insufficient and a sign that — to use a favorite GOP phrase — we need to settle on a “surrender date” on immigration enforcement.

That date would be whenever Bush’s latest “comprehensive” reform proposal kicked in. He wants to legalize illegal immigrants already here and invite in “temporary” guest workers. When Congress finishes with it, this probably will be another proposal to solve the illegal-immigrant problem by making all immigrants past and future legal. This is the immigration-enforcement version of “declare victory and go home.”

And Bush wants to do it just as increased enforcement — like “the surge” in Baghdad — is showing tentative signs of progress. Apprehensions of illegals are down across the border, an indication that fewer of them are coming. Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies notes that the foreign-born population grew by only 500,000 last year, significantly off the annual pace of growth since 2000.

The administration contradicts itself on enforcement. On the one hand, it touts the success of increased border patrols and occasional workplace raids, because it realizes, politically, that it has to be seen as trying to enforce the laws. On the other hand, it argues that enforcement can’t possibly work, so we have to adopt an amnesty and guest-worker program.

The rational response to the promising signs from enforcement would be to do more of it, and to avoid undercutting its early success. But on immigration, the Bushies are — again, to use a term from the Iraq debate — defeatists.

The cost of this defeatism is borne disproportionately by low-skilled, native-born workers and the taxpayers. Flooding the job market with poorly educated immigrants does no favors for low-skilled native workers. It can only serve to depress their wages in what is already a difficult economic environment for them. Camarota believes a recent uptick in low-skill wages could be related to the slowdown in the flow of foreign workers.

The burden on taxpayers, meanwhile, is a function of the nature of government benefits. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation calculates that low-skill households receive $32,138 in direct government benefits and services, $10,000 more than the average household. These low-skill households pay less than $10,000 a year in taxes, meaning they get three dollars from the government for every dollar paid. Because almost all immigrants from Mexico are low-skilled, they can only add to this fiscal drain.

At least Bush wants to attempt to depress the wages of higher-skilled workers, too. He is proposing to expand the number of H-1B work visas for higher-skilled foreign workers, who tend to get paid less than their native-born counterparts. Alan Greenspan recently conducted a thought experiment. “Our skilled wages,” he said, “are higher than anywhere in the world. If we open a significant window for (foreign) skilled workers, that would suppress the skilled-wage level and end the concentration of income.”

Indeed, it would. It also would cause a political revolt. Such a revolt doesn’t occur at the lower end of the income scale, because the natural representative of the interests of native low-skilled workers — the Democratic Party — has bought into high levels of immigration in the hopes of getting new voters.

Bush’s failings at the border mirror his failings in Iraq. In both places, he underestimated the need for security and order and has undertaken a push for them only belatedly. In both places, he was motivated by a good-hearted belief in the essential fungibility of people. He thought that Iraqis naturally would have the same desires as Westerners; and on the border, he assumes that Mexicans are seamlessly interchangeable with Americans, since they seek employment here.

In Iraq, he has tried to compensate for his mistakes. On the border, he seems hopeless.

© 2007 by King Features Syndicate


http://www.numbersusa.com/index

Speaking to the Border Patrol in Yuma, Ariz., Bush said it would be impossible to find and deport the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the United States.

Isn't it funny how the mexican consulates know how many and where many of them are, and we don't?

So let's get their databases, find 'em and ship them home.
SIMPLE!

Originally Posted by sippy

Speaking to the Border Patrol in Yuma, Ariz., Bush said it would be impossible to find and deport the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the United States.

Isn't it funny how the mexican consulates know how many and where many of them are, and we don't?

So let's get their databases, find 'em and ship them home.
SIMPLE!

How true, SIPPY!!

There is NO EXCUSE not to ENFORCE THE LAW.

When we meet with our reps, call and write, we should begin the drumbeat...ENFORCE OUR LAWS NOW!!! No excuses are acceptable as this government has NEVER attempted to enforce our laws properly.

I received that today also and boy, we surely have been sold out.

You guys are right, they can find these illegals, it's just that they don't want to find them.

I'm sick and tired of them thinking we are too stupid. They will see one day and realize who the stupid ones have been all along.

they manage to find them to send them benefits don't they?

Originally Posted by Dagmar

they manage to find them to send them benefits don't they?

Geez. Dag.

One simple sentence and you summed it up perfectly.

Originally Posted by ProudAmericanFamily

Originally Posted by Dagmar

they manage to find them to send them benefits don't they?

Geez. Dag.

One simple sentence and you summed it up perfectly.

DOUBLE DANG!

It's good news. but also a typical sad example of how our politics works. Pelosi won't bring it up unless she has the cover of alot of Republicans voting for it. That's what's most important to many of the pols these days, not the good of the country.

Originally Posted by GUYMAN

It's good news. but also a typical sad example of how our politics works. Pelosi won't bring it up unless she has the cover of alot of Republicans voting for it. That's what's most important to many of the pols these days, not the good of the country.

Well, she knows how the American people feel and they are NOT supporting the presidents agenda. Before she will support it and drag her party down, she wants enough Republicans to be drug into the mud with her party so that later she can say..this wasn't a democrat issue, it was bi-partisan. So you can't punish us at the polls without punishing them too...