PHONE CALLS NEEDED THRU THE WEEKEND UNTIL TUESDAY AT LEAST
Phone calls needed thru the weekend to the Appropriations Committee of the Senate. Their phone number is listed below and the operator will connect you to their answer machine. You will have about 3 minutes to speak and then just hit re-dial. (There is additional current info via the short Lou Dobbs video clip that americanpatrol.com posted at the top.)
Lou Dobbs Tonight -- CNN-- May 16
Dobbs: Pro-amnesty senators tonight making a new effort to ram their open borders agenda down the throats of the American people, now let's go back to June 28, 2007 when the American people made their views known to the United States Senate and the closer vote failed. It was very clear at that point what the will of the majority in this country was, but now two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Larry Craig suddenly have added an amendment that would provide amnesty for illegal alien farm workers in this country, they and their family amounting to some three million people.
And they're putting this little number into a bill funding the war in Iraq. You're not supposed to notice. We're not supposed to notice. And the American people are not supposed to notice. These two senators added the amendment in the dark of night, and they did so without debate. They're duplicitous, deceitful, and absolutely dishonorable in doing so.
Pilgrim: This meeting yesterday at the Senate Appropriations Committee convened to vote on funding U.S. spending in Iraq. But late in the day 100 pages were added to the bill that would make an estimated three million people illegal alien farm workers and their families eligible to work in the United States and it passed 17 to 12.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL): Why would they stick it on a war supplemental? That is a deliberate attempt to bypass scrutiny and to see if they can slide it through without the American people realizing what's happening, on a bill that we really need to pass.
Watch Transcript
Watch Lou Dobbs present the Amnesty Agenda
http://americanpatrol.com/WMV/080516-Dobbs.wmv
This message below comes from FAIR (www.FAIRUS.org)
We need phone calls into the offices of members of the Senate Appropriations Committee -- massively and immediately!
202-224-3121
If you live in the state of one of these Senators, please make a phone call immediately.
If you don't have a Senator on the Committee, you may want to call a Senator in another state with which you have some attachment. We particularly need extra phone calls to Senators from small-population states.
Here are the Appropriations Senators who need your call:
Alexander (R-Tenn.)
Allard (R-Colo.)
Byrd (D-West Va.)
Bennett (R-Utah)
Bond (R-Mo.)
Brownback (R-Kan.)
Cochran (R-Miss.)
Craig (R-Idaho)
Domenici (R-N.M.)
Dorgan (D-N.D.)
Durbin (D-Ill.)
Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Gregg (R-N.H.)
Harkin (D-Iowa)
Hutchison (R-Texas)
Inouye (D-Hawaii)
Johnson (D-S.D.)
Kohl (D-Wis.)
Landrieu (D-La.)
Lautenberg (D-N.J.)
Leahy (D-Vt.)
McConnell (R-Ky.)
Mikulski (D-Md.)
Murray (D-Wash)
Nelson (D-Neb.)
Reed (D-R.I.)
Shelby (R-Ala.)
Specter (R-Pa.)
Stevens (R-Alaska)
Your message is basically that you have heard of Sen. Feinstein's desire to attach an illegal ag worker amnesty to the Iraq spending bill and that you object. You can quickly state why any kind of amnesty is bad -- particularly in the middle of a recession.
You may also point out that there is no excuse for growers hiring illegal aliens. North Carolina growers, for example, have set up a North Carolina Growers Association that meets all of the ag labor needs through local workers and through legal foreign workers brought through the H-2A visa which ensures that the guest workers go home. Why shouldn't California growers play by the same rules as law-abiding farmers in other states?
Based on past experience, there is a good chance that Feinstein will decide not to introduce her amnesty Thursday afternoon if she feels there is a major move against it. That's what we want. Please let every member of the committee know just how worked up citizens get as soon as they hear of a possibility of an amnesty.
Transcript of Lou Dobbs and Kitty Pilgram discussing the new Amnesty
Pro-amnesty senators tonight making a new effort to ram their open border's agenda down the throats of the American people, now let's go back to June 28, 2007 when the American people made their views known to the United States Senate and the closer vote failed. It was very clear at that point what the will of the majority in this country was, but now two senators, Dianne Feinstein (ph) and Larry Craig suddenly have added an amendment that would provide amnesty for illegal alien farm workers in this country, they and their family amounting to some three million people.
And they're putting this little number into a bill funding the war in Iraq. You're not supposed to notice. We're not supposed to notice. And the American people are not supposed to notice. These two senators added the amendment in the dark of night, and they did so without debate. They're duplicitous, deceitful, and absolutely dishonorable in doing so.
Kitty Pilgrim has our report.
PILGRIM (voice-over): This meeting yesterday at the Senate Appropriations Committee convened to vote on funding U.S. spending in Iraq. But late in the day 100 pages were added to the bill that would make an estimated three million people illegal alien farm workers and their families eligible to work in the United States and it passed 17 to 12.
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS, (R), ALABAMA: Why would they stick it on a war supplemental? That is a deliberate attempt to bypass scrutiny and to see if they can slide it through without the American people realizing what's happening, on a bill that we really need to pass.
PILGRIM: The supporters of the AG Jobs (ph) Measure, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Larry Craig proposed a program they claim is needed to keep farms operating. Illegal aliens who have either worked for 150 days in agriculture or have earned $7,000 since January 2004 would qualify for a five-year amnesty.
Another measure added by Senator Barbara McCulsky that would open the door to low skilled nonagricultural workers. It would allow anyone who worked on the H2B work visa for the last three years to return for another year without being counted in the annual quota. Groups opposed to this legislation are up in arms.
STEVEN CAMAROTA, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: It's striking how something this controversial and really this important for the country can be put in, in this way without any really public disclosure and discourse and debate. It seems to be the worst aspect of special interest politics.
PILGRIM: Senator Jeff Sessions' office calculates the H2B visa revision could bring in a million more low skilled foreign workers over the next three years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now this is expected to come to the floor early next week for debate and a vote. Senator Feinstein says it's an emergency to get this passed. And they say it's clear they want to attach it to one of the few pieces of legislation likely to become a law before November.
DOBBS: Let me be clear again, this is only my opinion, not CNN's or anyone else's. But I think this is politics at its dirtiest, its worst, its most duplicitous. And Senator Feinstein I frankly thought was a legislator with more character, more honor. And to be involved in this is utterly just absurd.
PILGRIM: Many of the people we spoke today say it is an absolute abuse of the appropriation process.
DOBBS: It is an abuse and you know what, Senator Harry Reid, I want to remind the Democratic leadership if I may that they are the ones who talked about a culture of corruption in the midterm election campaign in 2006. And I want to congratulate Senator Harry Reid, because you have, I think, in many respects met and outdone the standard set by the Republican leadership when they were in charge in 2006.
You're just as duplicitous, disgusting and absolutely indifferent to the interests of this country as the Republican leadership, so you should be proud. You've kept the culture of corruption alive and well in our nation's Capitol. I just hope that somebody, somebody in this country finally gets a belly full of your nonsense. Because this country needs far better than what we're getting from these two political parties.
Kitty thank you very much -- Kitty Pilgrim.
From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Thursday 15MAY08 4:30 p.m. EDT
Senate committee adds amnesty for 1.2 million illegal ag workers to Iraq spending bill -- PHONE NOW
DEAR FRIENDS,
On a 17-12 vote this afternoon, the Senate Appropriations Committee added Sen. Feinstein's ag amnesty to the Iraq supplemental spending bill.
This bill could come up for a vote before the full Senate tomorrow.
Every phone of every Senator should be ringing off the hook as soon as I click SEND on this alert.
Please pick up your phone the minute you read this and call:
202-224-3121
Call the offices of both of your state's U.S. Senators and tell them:
The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday afternoon committed an outrageous act of disrespect for our men and women in uniform and to the citizens of this country by attaching an illegal-alien amnesty to the Iraq spending bill.
Urge the Senator to vote and work to strip the amnesty from the Iraq spending bill on the floor.
You - or the Senator - may already oppose this spending bill. But if the Senator is inclined to vote YES on the Iraq bill, ask the Senator to definitely vote NO and send it back to committee if the amnesty is NOT stripped.
There is no need for an amnesty to provide growers with workers. There already is an H-2A foreign ag worker program that provides growers with an unlimited number of temporary workers if the growers agree to pay a decent wage and ensure that they go home at the end of the season. Feinstein is just trying to protect the abysmally low wages and bad working conditions that farmworkers labor under.
Here are additional talking points (and the names of your two Senators, plus additional phone numbers):
http://www.numbersusa.com/phones?ID=10121
Expect that many staffers will either have no idea what is going on or will be lying to you. Some of you were reporting to us that Sen. Feinstein's staffers were telling you that she had no intention of attaching an amnesty this afternoon at the precise time that the committee was voting on her proposal to attach!!!!!
Unless Senators see an outpouring of disgust and outrage similar to what you waged a year ago, they will interpret it to be safe to vote an amnesty this year.
Besides an estimated 1.2 million illegal alien ag workers, all the millions of illegal aliens in their families would apparently get an amnesty, also.
Good luck. You are the only force that stands between some semblance of the rule of law and massive rewards for illegal immigration.
THANKS,
P.S. We will be constantly adding new information as we obtain it on our home page at: www.NumbersUSA.com A lot of details are still fuzzy right now. Please keep checking back to our home page.
P.S.S. Just as I was starting to click the SEND button, this report arrived from The Hill news service:
The so-called Ag-Jobs amendment, sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho), would create a process that allows undocumented workers to continue to work on farms. Without the amendment, Feinstein warned that the U.S. would lose $5-9 billion to foreign competition, tens of thousands of farms would shut down and 80,000 workers would be transferred to Mexico.
The bill would sunset in five years.
NOTE FROM ROY: Open-borders supporters believe that if they can just help illegal aliens sink roots for a few more years that it will be impossible for the government later to try to make them leave.
My staff is just now reading through Feinstein's language and tell me that it looks like she will give all illegals the chance to adjust to permanent status and path to citizenship at the end of the five years.
"Agriculture needs a consistent workforce," Feinstein said. "Without it, they can't plant, they can't prune, they can't pick and they can't pack.
"This is an emergency situation," she added.
The amendment was approved by a 17-12 vote with defections from both parties. Critics say the amendment amounts to amnesty for people who entered the country illegally. A broader comprehensive immigration overhaul, with a path for citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, failed in a divisive Senate vote last year.
"No matter how one characterizes it, this enormous amendment still amounts to amnesty," said Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). "I oppose amnesty. All these immigration issues should be addressed through the regular order."
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