Thread: Roy Beck's Statement re Amnesty Pledge

Just received this in my email box this a.m.....
From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Saturday 19JAN08 1:30 a.m. EST


Huckabee (&Thompson&Romney) say all illegals go home -- McCain says 10 million stay

GOOD MORNING, SOUTH CAROLINA VOTERS,

The rest of the nation is waiting to see if predictions are correct that you will vote in the Republican Primary to send a pro-amnesty message which may set the direction for the rest of the Primaries and perhaps guarantee another pro-amnesty President.

John McCain is polling in first place in South Carolina as you head to the polls today.


But McCain has taken the side of amnesty for illegal aliens in nearly two dozen votes and co-sponsorships. You can look at all McCain pro-amnesty actions on this link.


Here is history of McCain immigration actions.


McCain says he got the message last year that voters didn't like all of his giant amnesty bills. But his only change is that he promises to secure the border before he gives legal status to at least 10 million illegal aliens so they can permanently keep American jobs. He even says this on his South Carolina radio ads, noting that he would only require that the illegal aliens pay a fine and learn English.

If you are as concerned as I am about a pro-amnesty victory for McCain, you may want to print out this one-pager and make copies to hand out just outside the voting stations today.

I have been rather shocked to read reports of South Carolina Republican voters who say they are very concerned about illegal immigration and that they plan to vote for Sen. McCain as the best candidate to take care of the problem.

That certainly is not the indication from our Presidential Grid that rates each candidate on 16 immigration categories.

What a contrast to McCain (and the equally pro-amnesty Giuliani) is Sen. Thompson.

Look at our NumbersUSA home page for our description of how Thompson has the best immigration promises and plan of all the candidates polling above 5%.

Both Thompson and Romney have promised to make illegal aliens go home.

But McCain's pro-amnesty plans received their greatest exposure this week when Gov. Huckabee signed NumbersUSA's "no-amnesty pledge" in front of a busload of national news media at North Greenville University in South Carolina.


Huckabee has placed the full pledge on his blog on his campaign website


January 17, 2008 - 11:38 PM

by Mike Huckabee

Yesterday, I signed the following pledge:

"I pledge to oppose amnesty or any other special path to citizenship for the millions of foreign nationals unlawfully present in the United States. As President, I will fully implement enforcement measures that, over time, will lead to the attrition of our illegal immigrant population. I also pledge to make security of our borders a top priority of my administration."

Important points:

1. The 12 million illegal immigrants now here will have to go home.

2. They will not get any legal status while here that allows them to remain long-term.

3. Once in their home countries, they may apply for re-admittance to the U.S. as immigrants, visitors or temporary workers through normal channels.

4. Once in their home countries, they will not receive any special privileges on the basis of their having been in the U.S. illegally, such as being put to the front of a visa line.

5. There will be no new categories or programs through which they may re-enter the U.S.

6. There will not be an expansion of green cards in any existing categories that will speed up their movement to the front of the line.

(The Governor agreed to this pledge made to the American people with his public signing before the national media on Jan. 16, 2008 at North Greenville University, South Carolina.)

In creating this pledge, NumbersUSA believed it closed nearly all of the loopholes that our members have seen in the promises of some candidates, some Members of Congress and the President when they say they oppose amnesty.


NumbersUSA's strategy in offering these 'no-amnesty pledges.'


We offered a pledge to all candidates about six weeks ago and said that I would appear at a press conference with any candidate who signed it.

Hunter, Thompson and Romney have all earned EXCELLENT ratings on amnesty through other methods. However, last weekend, Huckabee contacted us expressing interest in sending a clear signal that he understands what the public wants when it cries out for no amnesty.

Huckabee's willingness to sign such a tightly worded and strong pledge really shows the power of grassroots pressure. Just a couple of months ago, Huckabee was still making some really awful comments about amnesty, sounding very much like McCain's current pro-amnesty plan. Yet, this week, he committed himself to arguably the most detailed and iron-clad no-amnesty pledge out there.

We received strong criticism from many of you who feel that Huckabee's past stances on immigration make him untrustworthy to carry out his pledge with us -- and that we were wrong to accept his pledge.

You have to make a judgment about trustworthiness on your own. We simply rate the quality of each candidate's most current campaign promises with an eye to how public and official those promises are.

Some have contacted us in great anger, claiming that we have at least quasi-endorsed Huckabee.

That simply is not true. We never endorse candidates. I made that abundantly clear at the first of the news conference. I saw no news reports that misrepresented us as endorsing.

One set of criticisms, however, was of great concern to me. At first, the "Important Points" above were not included in the Huckabee website. Several of you said you loved the bullet points that I included Wednesday night in my report of my day in South Carolina but that unless Huckabee placed them on his website, there was no real accountability that he would ever stand by them.

In response to your many emailed comments, I contacted Huckabee's campaign and said that the points of explanation had to be on the website as part of the pledge if his pledge was to be taken seriously. Huckabee almost immediately responded with the full pledge you see above.

Our goal has been to persuade as many Presidential candidates as possible to move in our direction on the immigration issues. We have been pleased during the Primary season as Thompson, Paul, Romney and Huckabee have continued to improve on their overall immigration stances.

This has terrified the New York Times which ran a big editorial Friday, denouncing the seemingly unending movement of several candidates toward our side. It also condemned NumbersUSA for working so hard against illegal immigration.

Do what you can in South Carolina today,

yeah, I just got it too. Sounds pretty tight. But I am fairly confident that they will find a way to creat some new loophole. It will just be worded so thathey can pitch it that it's not a loophole.

This is a very interesting development. NumbersUSA has utilized the pressure we have helped to create on Huckabee to pin him down on this a great deal.

Huckabee may still be lying, but now he has signed and displayed a reversal of his earlier statements on Dec. 9 2007. This is a good step forward as it will now be harder for him to betray us if he makes it.

W

Roy has tried very hard to report this information but people are upset.

When I read this about Huckabee, and how he has adjusted his immigration plan for a 3rd time in the last few months, I feel like I have just watched a news report that explained how a crime was committed and that they just taught all the crooks how to do it.

I feel like Huckabee is using Gilchirst and NumbersUSA and that a leopard can't change his spots. When Huckabee gets elected with their support and he resorts back to his true pro-illegal agenda, nothing and I mean nothing will prevent him from signing off on the amnesty. What can America do at that point? Nothing, because they just elected another liar! Huckabee is saying what he needs to say to get elected.

Dixie

I even think that this email promotes Huckabee! Maybe it should be first stated that other candidates have an excellent rating without even signing a pledge! That's listed in a regular font size towards the end while Huckabee's scam is in big blue letters. Thanks alot Roy, NOT!

Actually I think Huck has very little chance of being elected

I also think we have dinged on Roy enough and he knows
alot of us are not pleased

Time to move on I guess

Off to caucus , bbl

Originally Posted by Dixie

Roy has tried very hard to report this information but people are upset.

When I read this about Huckabee, and how he has adjusted his immigration plan for a 3rd time in the last few months, I feel like I have just watched a news report that explained how a crime was committed and that they just taught all the crooks how to do it.

I feel like Huckabee is using Gilchirst and NumbersUSA and that a leopard can't change his spots. When Huckabee gets elected with their support and he resorts back to his true pro-illegal agenda, nothing and I mean nothing will prevent him from signing off on the amnesty. What can America do at that point? Nothing, because they just elected another liar! Huckabee is saying what he needs to say to get elected.

Dixie

I agree!!! Huckabee and McCain were the worst of the worst regarding illegals----and their past actions/words definitely makes it that they should NEVER be trusted regarding this issue.

As someone said (either on this site or another)--------"the Huckster would hang a puppy, if it thought that it would get him elected".

Originally Posted by Dixie

Roy has tried very hard to report this information but people are upset.

When I read this about Huckabee, and how he has adjusted his immigration plan for a 3rd time in the last few months, I feel like I have just watched a news report that explained how a crime was committed and that they just taught all the crooks how to do it.

I feel like Huckabee is using Gilchirst and NumbersUSA and that a leopard can't change his spots. When Huckabee gets elected with their support and he resorts back to his true pro-illegal agenda, nothing and I mean nothing will prevent him from signing off on the amnesty. What can America do at that point? Nothing, because they just elected another liar! Huckabee is saying what he needs to say to get elected.

Dixie

After reading Beck's statement today, I still feel that he was naive, and just isn't thinking of the consequences that this 'pledge' nonsense will have on the uninformed. We can only hope that most people are as astute as the Alipacers (and all the other groups)!

It's so terribly obvious that Huckabee is a lying, conniving, two faced snake oil salesman....he practically begged Roy Beck to let him take the pledge! He probably didn't even read it!

I'm not so sure he's gonna get the nomination; but if he does, the Dems are going to rip him to shreds. If he became President, by some bizarre outside force, he couldn't stop amnesty because he's bucking a Dem Congress. He can't override a 2/3 vote in Congress, can he? I'm not sure about that aspect.

Huckabee is the dream candidate for the Dems!

Beck outlined his case well and we should give him the benefit of a doubt, based in part on his leadership on these issues over the years.

I'll say again: at this time, John McCain is the biggest amnesty threat we're facing and if we wins the GOP nomination, it'll be amnesty-time on steroids. The MSM continues to push his candidacy with puff piece after puff piece.

I think that since it appears McCain has a chance of winning the nomination, groups like ours need to flood his campaign offices with demands of no amesty, no special consideration of illegals for ANY type of legal status.
Lets remind him who he should be representing in America. This is an issue of jobs for Americans and stopping illegal immigration. How will his plan to legalize 10-40 million illegals help?