Thread: Your jobs are in danger, PLEASE ACT NOW!!!

From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Tuesday 1CT05 3:30 a.m.

Phone NOW to stop Specter/Kennedy on Thursday from importing 100s of thousands more skilled workers

Your jobs are in danger.

Senate committee is poised to act Thursday to OK hundreds of thousands of additional high-skilled foreign workers.

I'm sending this to the 4,983 of you who have told us that you are working in occupations of high-tech, science, engineering and health-care -- and/or that you have special concerns about flooding those professions with foreign workers.

If you have never called a Senate office, this is the time to start. (See directions below on who to call and what to say.)

1. The Spectre/Kennedy plan
to offset the budget deficit by selling American professional jobs to foreign workers

Senate Judiciary Chairman Specter (R-PA) and Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) plan to push a draconian idea through committee on Thursday. It is so callous that you may have difficulty believing it is true.

Because of the profligate spending by Congress and the President in recent years, each congressional committee is now charged with coming up with big spending cuts or big revenue increases.

Specter and Kennedy have decided to balance their part of the budget mess on the backs of unemployed and underemployed high-tech and other professional workers -- and on the backs of American students who are currently studying to enter those occupations.

The plan by Specter and Kennedy is to sell hundreds of thousands of American professional jobs over the next several years to foreign workers -- or more precisely, to sell them to corporations which will then be allowed to import foreign workers instead of having to hire Americans.

I'll be more specific below, but let's get on to your action.

2. Call these Senators at this phone number

It is still possible to shame -- and even scare -- a U.S. Senator.

Call one or more of the Senators who serve on the Judicary Committee.

Let them know that you know of this incredible sell-out of American professionals that is being contemplated. Senators who are our allies may be spurred to heroic action to stop their colleagues from this treachery. And weak-kneed Senators facing elections next year may be frightened away from Specter and Kennedy's sell-out of American workers.

Do not assume that somebody else will make this call for you. Now is the time to start making your voice heard.

Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard and ask for the Senator you are trying to reach. Call:

202-224-3121

================
REPUBLICANS
================
Arlen Specter, CHAIRMAN, PENNSYLVANIA
Orrin G. Hatch, UTAH
Charles E. Grassley, IOWA
Jon Kyl, ARIZONA
Mike DeWine, OHIO
Jeff Sessions, ALABAMA
Lindsey Graham, SOUTH CAROLINA
John Cornyn, TEXAS
Sam Brownback, KANSAS
Tom Coburn, ILLINOIS

==================
DEMOCRATS
==================
Patrick J. Leahy, RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER, VERMONT
Edward M. Kennedy, MASSACHUSETTS
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., DELAWARE
Herbert Kohl, WISCONSIN
Dianne Feinstein, CALIFORNIA
Russell D. Feingold, WISCONSIN
Charles E. Schumer, NEW YORK
Richard J. Durbin, ILLINOIS

It is especially important that you call the Senator from your own state.

But you have a vested interest in the outcome of this proposal on Thursday. Make that clear to the staffer who takes your call.

3. What to say on the phone

Be polite but don't hold back your personal dismay about the Specter/Kennedy proposal.

1. Tell the staffer who answers that you are calling about the Specter/Kennedy proposal to sell massive new amounts of foreign-worker green cards and work visas to corporations in order to reduce budget deficits.

2. Give your reason why you believe that adding still more foreign workers to this country will harm American professionals and discourage American kids from entering these professions. GIVE YOUR PERSONAL CONNECTION TO THIS ISSUE.

3. The staffers will tend to react in disbelief or try to argue that there is no such proposal before the Committee. You should be prepared to cite the CQ Today article below (which comes from the highly respected Congressional Quarterly news operation).

4. Finish with a succinct statement such as: I oppose any action that increases green cards or visas for foreign workers. Give American workers a chance. Reduce all immigration.

5. You may want to suggest that the Senate committee meet its budget goals in the same way that House Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner has proposed by increasing the fees on the existing number of allowed visas. You will see that proposal highlighted in the CQ Today story below.

4. The CQ Today article explaining the Specter/Kennedy sell-out of American workers

CQ TODAY

Judiciary Committees Offer Dueling Proposals on Charges for Visas for Savings Targets

By Michael Sandler, CQ Staff

The House and Senate Judiciary committees hope to meet their relatively small mandatory savings targets by charging fees for visa programs that benefit businesses.

However, their initiatives differ enough to have the business community favor one and oppose the other.

The two committees must produce $300 million in savings over the next five years, a tiny fraction of the $34.7 billion in overall reductions called for in the budget resolution (H Con Res 95).

House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., has proposed requiring U.S companies with international operations to pay $1,500 every time one seeks a visa for the temporary transfer to the United States of a senior executive, manager or an employee with specialized knowledge.

The bill (HR 364, which would tack the fee onto the non-immigrant L-1 visa, would raise more than the $60 million a year sought by the budget. The committee approved the bill, 20-6, on Sept. 29.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes the bill, saying the fees could reach $150 million a year.

That may be important for Sensenbrenner, should House leadership demand that he and other committee chairmen find additional revenue or make deeper cuts to bolster the budget.

Foreign Executives

The proposed fees would apply only to a company's foreign executives and other employees, not to family members accompanying them to the United States or following them later. The legislation would prohibit employers from passing on the fee to the individuals receiving the visas.

The business community favors an alternative proposal by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Specter's plan, not yet introduced as legislation, would allow the federal government to go back to October 1991 and recapture all unused H-1B visas ÂÂÂ* issued for specialty occupations that require a bachelor's degree or the equivalent.

Those visas would be re-issued and assessed a $500 fee. The estimated 60,000 unclaimed visas issued each year would generate $30 million a year, or half the amount needed over the five-year budget reconciliation period.

The rest would come from reclaiming unused employment-based immigrant visas for professional workers, going back to 2001. A $500 fee would be added to all employment-based visas.

An aide to Specter said his draft will probably be marked up by the committee Oct. 20.

5. NumbersUSA analysis of specifics of the Specter/Kennedy plan

Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team says that the Specter/Kennedy plan proposed for Thursday's vote would do the following:

1. It would raise the annual cap on permanent employment-based immigration by changing the formula as follows: employment-based visas = 140,000 + any unused family-based visas from the previous year + (the lesser of 90,000 or unused employment-based visas from any prior year).

2. It exempts the spouses and children of employment-based immigrants from counting against the numerical cap, beginning in 2004. (In 2003, workers got 36,210 visas, and their spouses and children got 45,927 visas. Total visas could have more than doubled under this bill.)

3. It adds a fee of $500 per petition for most employment-based visa petitions.

4. It allows alien spouses and children of citizens to adjust to Legal Permanent Resident status if the citizen abused them, died, or lost or renounced their citizenship; and it allows alien spouses and children of LPRs to adjust to LPR status if the LPR abused them or died.

5. Anytime the H-1B cap is reached, the lesser of 60,000 or any unused visas in any prior years are added to the cap.

This proposal follows an alarming pattern of Senators constantly using immigration to hammer American professionals in information-technology, health care, science and engineering. Last winter in an otherwise wonderful REAL ID bill, Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) blindsided all of us in a Joint Conference Committee by adding tens of thousands of permanent greencards for foreign nurses and other foreign professionals.

These actions usually are at the request of the all-owerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce for whom greed has no limit.

Fortunatly, the sell-out of American workers has been exposed before the deed this time.

But nothing will change. The sell-out will occur. Senators will be encouraged to continue to find creative ways to knock down American workers. ....

UNLESS ......

Unless you make that phone call TODAY.

Only when these Senators hear a wall of noise from American voters that they demand NO MORE INCREASES IN IMMIGRATION -- ONLY REDUCTIONS IN IMMIGRATION -- will they stop these every-few-months shenanigans.

-- ROY

Dman we will take action. Whether or not it is in vain, we will take action.

I have already called the Worthless Dewine and went to the Neighbors and let them use my Phone to call. In all he got 14 calls in the past 30 Minutes.

Have you noticed that it is no longer the "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people", but now it's more like the "Government of the elite, by the scoundrels, against the people"? Of course, the people are so naive, self-absorbed, in denial, drugged up, and indoctrinated that they won't know what hit them until it's too late. A bunch of not so happy idiots that are going to be considerably less happy, I think. (The last two sentences don't apply to ALIPAC folks and a few others.)

Is there a Senate bill number assigned to this yet?

Where were you guys when Disney convinced the Government to allow Multinational corporations like Disney to own their products PERPETUALLY, something the FOunding Fathers strongly OPPOSED! You guys should have been up in arms about something that effects you more than if Juan Gonzalez gets his residency or not. It allows BIG Business to CONTROL the Voices of the People.

as for this bill ...I'll read it first ...see what it actually says.

Well, I read it. It's interesting. Having read it, though, I dont' see what you are all freaked out about. If anything the Illegal immigrants should worry. If they want to keep their current jobs they are going to have to quit and apply for it again, pay fees extimated at between $500 and $2000, back taxes, have a clean criminal record (which for most isn't a problem, but alot of these fools are constantly drinking and driving).

For one thing, it specifically targest only those jobs that are for no or low skilled workers H-2b


Here's a link from Senator Kennedy's website: (it actually has the specific points that are addressed)

http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/s...005512A04.html

I find it at least to be a more effective way of dealing with the problem than I've seen lately.

Originally Posted by Jhaerlyn

Where were you guys when Disney convinced the Government to allow Multinational corporations like Disney to own their products PERPETUALLY, something the FOunding Fathers strongly OPPOSED! You guys should have been up in arms about something that effects you more than if Juan Gonzalez gets his residency or not. It allows BIG Business to CONTROL the Voices of the People.

as for this bill ...I'll read it first ...see what it actually says.

Well this at least makes me realized that you have some clue to the problem that Americans are facing. It isn't the people; it is Corporate America and the Politicians that are in their pocket. The special interests need to be stopped and strict rule of Impeachment enforced with extreme prejudice.

Originally Posted by Jhaerlyn

Where were you guys when Disney convinced the Government to allow Multinational corporations like Disney to own their products PERPETUALLY, something the FOunding Fathers strongly OPPOSED! You guys should have been up in arms about something that effects you more than if Juan Gonzalez gets his residency or not. It allows BIG Business to CONTROL the Voices of the People.

as for this bill ...I'll read it first ...see what it actually says.

In perpetuity was not granted. although due to our lifespans, it certainly would pass for that. Congressional approval of those copyright extensions was blatant submission before a corporate master. I lost any respect that remained for those congressional delgates that passed that piece of legislation.
But now there is another, and yes it matters to me too. Just because that previous episode proved that congress is the humble servant to American tycoon, corporate boards, and imperial elites, doesn't mean we should give up and let them have their way with a more damaging and far reaching ploy now.
The lengthening of the disney's choke hold on all things cartoon can be overcome with a new dose of creativity by a whole new breed of imagineers. If they extended the rights of every patent, every copyright indefinately, then you may have a more valid point. It will be alot harder to compete with 50 million more immigrants for the limited amount of resources here in America, than to create a new product to set under your kids christmas tree next year. 50 million more people will mean more congression seats they can use against you. Since you are worried about those sitting in them now, there is little reason to think juan alcala would be any more compassionate or principled when the corporate gods finance his election. It certainly doesn't appear that juan has lead by example in latin america

Originally Posted by Roy Beck,President,NumbersUSA

Date: Thursday 20OCT05 3:30 a.m.


Senate Judiciary just approved selling U.S. tech jobs to foreign workers

You must phone your disgust to Senators now ....

.... if you want to have a chance at stopping this travesty from passing into law.

.... if you want any hope of deterring these same Senators from future acts of aggression against American workers, you must call them now so they can feel the public condemnation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted for Sen. Specter's (R-PA) plan to sell hundreds of thousands of additional work visas and permanent green cards to corporations for them to distribute to foreign workers so they can take American high-tech and professional jobs from American workers.

Their rationale was that the government needs the money.

These Senators behave this way because they sincerely believe that people like you will not hold them accountable ... that you will not even raise your voice, make a phone call, send a fax or take your fury to a talk show.

If we are ever to get some relief for American workers, we must overwhelm these sell-out Senators NOW.


1. Call these Senators at these phone numbers


The most important call for everybody is Sen. Specter who is the chairman of the committee and who invented this latest sell-out of American skilled workers.

=========================
Pennsylvania
=========================
Sen. Specter, Arlen
(202-224-4254)

Be sure to call any Senator from your own state.

If you have time, next call Senators from states that adjoin yours.

These are the Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who allowed Specter's plan to sell American jobs to foreign workers.

=========================
Delaware
=========================
Sen. Biden, Joseph
(202-224-5042)

=========================
Illinois
=========================
Sen. Durbin, Richard
(202-224-2152)

=========================
Kansas
=========================
Sen. Brownback, Sam
(202-224-6521)

=========================
Massachusetts
=========================
Sen. Kennedy, Edward
(202-224-4543)

=========================
New York
=========================
Sen. Schumer, Charles
(202-224-6542)

=================
Ohio
=========================
Sen. DeWine, Mike
(202-224-2315)

=========================
Pennsylvania
=========================
Sen. Specter, Arlen
(202-224-4254)

=========================
South Carolina
=========================
Sen. Graham, Lindsey
(202-224-5972)

=========================
Texas
=========================
Sen. Cornyn, John
(202-224-2934)

=========================
Utah
=========================
Sen. Hatch, Orrin
(202-224-5251)

=========================
Vermont
=========================
Sen. Leahy, Patrick
(202-224-4242)

=========================
Wisconsin
=========================
Sen. Feingold, Russell
(202-224-5323)
Sen. Kohl, Herb
(202-224-5653)


2. What to say on the phone


I think you can pretty well figure out for yourself what to say.

1. Let them know that you know what this Senator allowed the Senate Judiciary Committee to do today. Tell the staffer who answers that you are calling about the Specter/Kennedy proposal to sell massive new amounts of foreign-worker green cards and work visas to corporations in order to reduce budget deficits.

(We do not have any recorded votes to give you at this time. So don't use the words that the Senator "voted" for this. Rather, use the words that the Senator "allowed" this. We have left off the phone list the names of Senators who we believe did something to oppose Specter's plan.)

2. Let them know why you think Specter's plan is a travesty to American students studying for scientific, engineering and high-tech fields and a travesty to all Americans already in those fields.

3. Give you own connection to the issue.

4. Finish with a succinct statement such as: I oppose any action that increases green cards or visas for foreign workers. Give American workers a chance. Reduce all immigration.


3. The Spectre/Kennedy plan
to offset the budget deficit by selling American professional jobs to foreign workers


Senate Judiciary Chairman Specter (R-PA) and Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) have pushed through the committee a plan that is so callous that you may have difficulty believing it is true.

Because of the profligate spending by Congress and the President in recent years, each congressional committee is now charged with coming up with big spending cuts or big revenue increases.

The Judiciary Committee has now decided to balance their part of the budget mess on the backs of unemployed and underemployed high-tech and other professional workers -- and on the backs of American students who are currently studying to enter those occupations.

The plan by Specter and Kennedy is to sell hundreds of thousands of American professional jobs over the next several years to foreign workers -- or more precisely, to sell them to corporations which will then be allowed to import foreign workers instead of having to hire Americans.

See excerpt from the Congressional Quarterly Article below.


4. The CQ Today article explaining the Specter/Kennedy sell-out of American workers


CQ TODAY

Judiciary Committees Offer Dueling Proposals on Charges for Visas for Savings Targets

By Michael Sandler, CQ Staff

The House and Senate Judiciary committees hope to meet their relatively small mandatory savings targets by charging fees for visa programs that benefit businesses.

However, their initiatives differ enough to have the business community favor one and oppose the other.

The two committees must produce $300 million in savings over the next five years, a tiny fraction of the $34.7 billion in overall reductions called for in the budget resolution (H Con Res 95).

********

The business community favors an alternative proposal by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Specter's plan ... would allow the federal government to go back to October 1991 and recapture all unused H-1B visas ÂÂÂ* issued for specialty occupations that require a bachelor's degree or the equivalent.

Those visas would be re-issued and assessed a $500 fee. The estimated 60,000 unclaimed visas issued each year would generate $30 million a year, or half the amount needed over the five-year budget reconciliation period.

The rest would come from reclaiming unused employment-based immigrant visas for professional workers, going back to 2001. A $500 fee would be added to all employment-based visas.


5. NumbersUSA analysis of specifics of the Specter/Kennedy plan


As soon as we know the details of what the Senate Judiciary Committee did today, we will let you know.

We are aware, for example, that Sen. Sessions (R-AL) and Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) were successful in moderately limiting some of the damage that Specter proposed.

Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team says that the Specter/Kennedy plan proposed for Thursday's vote would have done the following:

1. It would raise the annual cap on permanent employment-based immigration by changing the formula as follows: employment-based visas = 140,000 + any unused family-based visas from the previous year + (the lesser of 90,000 or unused employment-based visas from any prior year).

2. It exempts the spouses and children of employment-based immigrants from counting against the numerical cap, beginning in 2004. (In 2003, workers got 36,210 visas, and their spouses and children got 45,927 visas. Total visas could have more than doubled under this bill.)

3. It adds a fee of $500 per petition for most employment-based visa petitions.

4. It allows alien spouses and children of citizens to adjust to Legal Permanent Resident status if the citizen abused them, died, or lost or renounced their citizenship; and it allows alien spouses and children of LPRs to adjust to LPR status if the LPR abused them or died.

5. Anytime the H-1B cap is reached, the lesser of 60,000 or any unused visas in any prior years are added to the cap.

This proposal follows an alarming pattern of Senators constantly using immigration to hammer American professionals in information-technology, health care, science and engineering. Last winter in an otherwise wonderful REAL ID bill, Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) blindsided all of us in a Joint Conference Committee by adding tens of thousands of permanent greencards for foreign nurses and other foreign professionals.

These actions usually are at the request of the all-owerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce for whom greed has no limit.

Nothing will change. The sell-out will occur. Senators will be encouraged to continue to find creative ways to knock down American workers. ....

UNLESS ......

Unless you make that phone call TODAY.

Only when these Senators hear a wall of noise from American voters that they demand NO MORE INCREASES IN IMMIGRATION -- ONLY REDUCTIONS IN IMMIGRATION -- will they stop these every-few-months shenanigans.

And, by the way, Jhaerlyn, you read the wrong thing. The topic of this thread, as per the original post, was the yet to be introduced legislation referred to as Specter-Kennedy, not the McCain-Kennedy bill (S. 1033, I believe) introduced May 12, 2005 which you referenced. McCain-Kennedy does deal with H-2Bs and illegal immigration types. Specter-Kennedy is mostly related to H-1B issues. And, even at that, you read the wrong thing wrong. Neither McCain-Kennedy nor the Bush "guest worker" proposal require that any illegal alien quit his/her job or go home to apply (Title VII, McCain-Kennedy). Only the Tancredo proposal does that. Both McCain-Kennedy and the Bush proposals grant temporary work permits allowing illegal aliens currently employed to continue working in the job they have with the opportunity to apply for (and get) a green card during the "temporary employment" -- or the extensions thereof in the case of Bush. That is, of course, an amnesty regardless of whether or not there is a token fine. It is like telling a bank robber he can keep the $100,000 from the bank if he pays the FDIC 1% of the loot. Maybe that isn't a good analogy because in the case of the bank and the FDIC the honest depositors are made whole, but in the case of the illegal aliens the honest folks don't receive reimbursement for lost jobs, depressed wages, wrecked neighborhoods, inaccessable health care, extra taxes, poor schools, uninsured motorists, increased prices, compromised safety, etc. etc. etc.

I don't know for sure what the Disney stuff is about, but maybe it refers to the 1998 Copyright Extension Act. Since you asked, about that time I was dealing with a situation with an elderly tenant who had her home broken into and was threatened and robbed by two illegal aliens. Fortunately for her, her German Shepherd made a pretty good late night snack from one of the intruders hands. This illegal, unlike many, could speak English but his entire English vocabulary was nothing more than "I sue, I sue, I sue". It is nice to know that American dogs still have the common sense to protect their terrority even if American humans don't and Ameican dogs know enough to protect the hands that feed them even if the American government doesn't.

Apparently you have difficulty determining from the context of the sentence, as most any American 2nd grader could, whether America refers to the country, the United States of America, or the continent, North America. In the paragraph above, American does refer to the country, the United States of America which occupies a portion of the continent, North America.

This discussion is not about one Juan Gonzalez getting his residency. It is about 11-20 million illegal aliens in particular and a population growth of near 50 million in 30-40 years due to immigration in general. The long term consequences of either or both are far more detrimental to this country and its people, and the environment of the continent than not being able to copy a cartoon character. That's what we are freaked out about -- the consequences. Sure, it would be easy to ignore the consequences and go for the immediate warm/fuzzy feelings of helping the poor undocumented residents and it would be easy self-aggrandizement requiring little effort to take a superioristic condescending attitude towards anybody who disagrees with giving away the country, and we might even find an easy way to make an extra buck or two off of those illegals. But some of us have to take the right road rather than the easy road out of respect and appreciation for what came before as well as an obligation for what we leave behind.