Newsletter

Week of Aug 29

This Issue: September executive amnesty threat remains, but many see your pressure as pushing Obama to wait 'til after November

Yes, we are hit at the end of this week with conflicting signals from the White House and mainstream media about whether the President is about ready to spring a devastating amnesty and immigration increase on us.
But one thing is indisputable. All of you in the NumbersUSA network of citizens -- and your allies -- have pressured Democratic Members of Congress so much that many are begging Pres. Obama to renege on his promise earlier this summer to issue an executive amnesty to an estimated 5 million illegal aliens by Sep. 21.
In the past few days, Democratic candidates in nearly every closely fought Senate race have criticized the idea of aggressive action by Obama. Some strategists say privately that it would signal that he has written off the Democrats' prospects for retaining control of the chamber, deciding to focus on securing his legacy instead. --Washington Post
Panicked Democrats locked in tight midterm races as the party tries desperately to hold onto control of the Senate fear President Obama's anticipated executive amnesty for about 5 million illegal immigrants may doom their re-election campaigns. . . . New Hampshire U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who has seen her double-digit lead in the polls evaporate into a virtual dead heat with former Bay State U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, said any such move should be left up to Congress. -- Boston Herald
Our mobilization strategy all summer has been based on the belief that Democratic incumbents in competitive election races are the people most likely to be able to persuade Pres. Obama to spare American workers the hardship of competing with millions more legal workers.
You have not complained as we interrupted your summer over and over again with opportunities to apply that pressure through phone, fax, email and attending town hall meetings. And you have had impact. News media have reported passionate objections to Obama immigration policies at town halls of Members of Congress across the country, such as this:
A town hall hosted by Democrat Jared Polis of Colorado featured constituents shouting at Polis and each other, and applauding those who contradicted him, on a range of issues, most prominently immigration, a local newspaper said. "We've had seven town halls, and immigration is the number one issue that comes up," Polis told Reuters.
T he news about candidate Scott Brown is a sign of success in another part of our overall summer strategy. We believed that Democratic Members of Congress would be more likely to oppose further unilateral Obama actions if they feared that Republicans would be willing to campaign on it.
Citizens have had to fight hard this summer to persuade Republicans to speak up. For several years, the national consultants to Republicans have urged their candidates either to be silent about immigration or to support the amnesties and foreign worker increases sought by corporate donors. We have mobilized citizens all summer to contact Republicans in Congress to urge them to boldly stand up for American workers against Obama's attempts to help the cheap-labor corporate lobbyists. And we are seeing more and more Republicans willing to break with their national party leadership on this issue.
Scott Brown is one of a small but growing group of Republican challengers who are starting to run ads and otherwise seek political advantage by attacking the past Obama executive amnesties and the promises of more.
OBAMA READY TO ACT IN SEPTEMBER?
Read for yourself what President Obama said yesterday.
Some commentators feel that Obama's remarks to reporters signaled heightened likelihood that he will issue his big immigration edict in September. And they are using unnamed sources to suggest that Pres. Obama is more concerned with creating a personal legacy as hero to illegal immigrant communities than he is with keeping a Democratic majority in the Senate.
For example, the National Journal boldly proclaimed today:
The White House appears to be moving full-speed ahead on an executive order that would provide widespread protection to illegal immigrants from deportation, Republicans--and maybe some Democrats--be damned.

Those close to the process expect an order in the first few weeks of September--and expect it, in the words of one immigration advocate, to be "significant."
But are these sources "close to the process" just the amnesty advocates that the news media have been quoting for two years saying that amnesty will pass in the next three months? Hard to tell. But the article is disturbing. It goes on to say:
White House aides stress that nothing has been finalized. Yet the administration's posture has been one of anticipating--even inviting--a highly public confrontation with Republicans over the issue. And while the concerns of vulnerable Senate Democrats in key races are being taken into account, they don't seem to be persuading the White House to deviate from its course--suggesting that the matter is viewed less in terms of the politics of the moment and more in terms of President Obama's long-term liberal legacy. --National Journal
OBAMA WON'T ACT BECAUSE IT WOULD HURT EFFORT TO DRAW SINGLE WOMEN TO THE POLLS?
A more hopeful sign comes from Greg Sargent, the aggressively pro-amnesty columnist who is charged with being the voice of the Democrats for the pro-amnesty Washington Post.
He wrote today that Democratic leaders are telling Obama that acting on immigration before the el ections will hurt Democrats' chances of winning not only because it will enflame and energize the conservative base of Republican voters but because it will change the subject of the campaigns.
Sargent suggests that the primary Democratic strategy for turning out their base of voters is to run on the theme that the Republicans are waging a "war on women."
Dem hopes for survival rest heavily on turning out t he unmarried women who are increasingly key to the Dem coalition but sit out midterms. The way to move them is with a message relentlessly focused on women's economic issues.

Any move that allows Republicans to argue Dems are focused on giving jobs to illegal immigrants -- however demagogic -- risks muddling that message in the minds of voters who are already suffering from economic insecurity. -- Greg Sargent, Washington Post
OBAMA MANEUVERING TO DELAY UNTIL AFTER ELECTION?
Perhaps the more common analysis of Obama's cloudy comments yesterday seems to be that they indicate that the concerns of Democratic candidates are causing him to maneuver himself to be able to delay any kind of actions until after the November elections.
With a self-imposed deadline looming, President Barack Obama said Thursday he still intends to act on his own to ch ange immigration policies but stopped short of reiterating his past vows to act by end of summer. -- Associated Press
The Los Angles Times this morning provided perhaps the most optimistic view:
President Obama is suggesting that he will defer his self-imposed deadline for announcing an expected change in immigration policy, as the White House wrestles with the pol itical and legal dilemmas involved in making significant alterations without congressional approval.

Fed up with congressional gridlock, the president has said he'll use his executive power to make changes. One proposal under discussion would delay a decision on the more sweeping and controversial changes under consideration until after the November midterm election, according to a White House official familiar with the discussions.

Under that plan, the president would first announce measures aimed at tightening enforcement of current law, then put off until the end of the year a decision on a more sweeping program that could temporarily shield millions of immigrants from deportation.

The two-step plan would bow to the concerns of Democratic lawmakers running in Republican-leaning states who have ex pressed opposition to Obama's plans to act unilaterally on the hot-button issue. -- Los Angeles Times
Bottom line, my friends, is that there are many signs of the value of all your efforts this summer and signs of hope for avoiding catastrophic presidential actions before the elections. But the danger still remains high, especially for the Lame Duck period of late November and December.
Roy Beck
Fri, Aug 29th