PHONE SENATE SWITCHBOARD AT:
202-224-3121
THIS IS A SHOW-DOWN MORNING, FRIENDS.
The vote on amnesty may be before noon.
I have a simple paragraph you can use on the phone if you have never called a Senate office. It is so easy.
"Hi, my name is xmxmxm xmxmxmx. I am calling about S. 2205, the DREAM Act amnesty. I urge the Senator to vote NO on cloture today and kill this amnesty. Thank you."
It is going to take a lot of first-timers to pull out a victory when the Senate is expected to vote by mid-day. How about calling and saying something like:
"I would like for you to tell Senator xmxmxmxm that giving the DREAM Act amnesty to 2.1 million illegal aliens will send the wrong message to the rest of the world. Ask him to please vote NO on cloture on S. 2205. We don't need to entice a larger wave of illegal immigration."
Or this:
"There should be no amnesty of any kind until Congress passes laws to stop the hiring of illegal foreign workers. S. 2205 would just invite a lot more illegal aliens to come. Please ask Sen. xmxmxm to vote NO on the DREAM Act amnesty."
CAN YOU MOVE A VOTE AND STOP THE AMNESTY THIS MORNING?
Assistant Senate Majority Leader Durbin (D-Ill.) said he would be working tonight to find the final YES votes to have the 60 needed to pass his DREAM Act amnesty later this morning.
I don't know what he found.
But even if he did go to bed with 60 votes, you can knock him back to 59 (or lower) and stop this amnesty if collectively you swamp the Senate offices with phone calls between 7 a.m. EDT and the vote which could come as early as 11 a.m.
PHONE SENATE SWITCHBOARD AT:
202-224-3121
THE MOST IMPORTANT SENATORS TO CALL
Your influence is always strongest with your own two Senators.
You can see which way your Senators are leaning by checking our list on the
www.NumbersUSA.com Home page. Your phone calls are most important for the Senators printed in black because they have not indicated which way they are likely to vote.
But if you want to lend more help this morning, please call from one of the lists below.
TARGET THESE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS UP FOR RE-ELECTION NEXT YEAR
Baucus (D-MT)
Biden (D-DE)
Durbin (D-IL)
Harkin (D-IA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Names in bold especially need to hear from you because we don't have a lot of members in those states.
You may want to calmly note to staffers in these offices that a story in yesterday's Washington Post by reporter Jonathan Weisman pointed out that failure by Democrats to respond to voters' anger about illegal immigration could cause them serious problems at the ballot box next year.
You can read from some of these quotes in a story that began with the example of a really solid Democratic seat being seriously challenged recently by a Republican who stressed toughness on illegal immigration.
"This issue has real implications for the country. It captures all the American people's anger and frustration not only with immigration, but with the economy," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and an architect of the Democratic congressional victories of 2006.
"It's self-evident. This is a big problem. ... For the American people, and therefore all of us, it's emerged as the third rail of American politics," Emanuel said. "And anyone who doesn't realize that isn't with the American people."
Republicans, sensing a major vulnerability, have been hammering Democrats, forcing Congress to face the question of illegal immigration on every bill they can find ...
"I think the Democrats are on the wrong side of this issue, and if they continue down this path, they are going to lose a lot of seats," said Matt Wylie, a strategist for the Ogonowski campaign.
The issue has shifted since concerns about illegal immigrants triggered angry calls for border fences and deportation two years ago. Now, voter anger appears to revolve around the belief that illegal immigrants are unfairly consuming government benefits, a fear that stems more from economic uncertainty than culture clashes, Democratic and Republican pollsters say.
Those concerns are not everywhere. But they are glaring in some of the white, working-class districts in Kansas, Indiana, North Carolina and New Hampshire that gave the Democrats control of the House last year. And they were on clear display in Lowell, Mass.
PHONE SENATE SWITCHBOARD AT:
202-224-3121
You will also want to consider talking about those points with the offices of the Democratic Senators who voted against the Comprehensive amnesty last June.
Most of those Democrats are either freshmen or in competitive states where Republicans have a chance of winning.
Saddling themselves with an amnesty today will not help them entrench themselves.
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Harkin (D-IA)
Landrieu (D-LA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Webb (D-VA)
Names in bold especially need to hear from you because we don't have a lot of members in those states.
PHONE SENATE SWITCHBOARD AT:
202-224-3121
TARGET REPUBLICANS UP FOR RE-ELECTION WHO HAVE NOT COMMITTED TO A 'NO' VOTE ON AMNESTY
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins(R-ME)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Graham (R-SC)
Smith (R-OR)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
IF YOU ARE AN EXPERIENCED CALLER, TALK TO THE STAFFERS ABOUT THE GIANT NUMBERS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS WHO WOULD GET THE DREAM AMNESTY
Our Capitol Hill Team is hearing from fence-sitting Senators that the argument that is moving them most toward voting YES on the DREAM Act amnesty is that it would give an amnesty to "only 60,000 kids a year."
Dr. Steve Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies this afternoon issued estimates on how many illegal aliens potentially could be involved if the DREAM Act amnesty becomes law. His research was based on the latest government surveys.
DREAM Act Offers Amnesty to 2.1 Million
New Estimate Shows Another 1.4 Million Family Members Could Also Stay
WASHINGTON (October 23, 2007) — The Senate is currently considering the DREAM Act (S.2205). Some have argued that only 60,000 illegal immigrants would be granted amnesty annually under the Act, but a new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies of 2007 Census Bureau data shows millions of potential beneficiaries.
# An estimated 800,000 illegal immigrants under age 17 have been here long enough to qualify for legalization under the DREAM Act. There are a total of 1.7 million illegal aliens estimated to be under age 18.
# There are an estimated 900,000 parents of illegal aliens under age 18 who qualify. It is unclear whether the government would deport these parents.
# The DREAM Act is also unclear as to what will happen to the siblings of legalized illegals who are themselves illegal, but do not meet the Act’s requirements. There are an estimated 500,000 such children.
# The DREAM Act also allows illegal aliens ages 18 to 29 to legalize if they claim to have arrived prior to age 16. We estimate 1.3 million meet this requirement. There are a total of 4.4 million illegal aliens in this age group.
# Thus the total number of potential amnesty beneficiaries is 2.1 million (assuming no fraud). This does not include 1.4 million siblings and parents of qualifying illegals who may end up receiving a de facto amnesty.
# Prior legalization programs have been plagued by fraud. One-fourth (700,000) of those legalized in the 1986 amnesty are estimated to have done so fraudulently.
# Given the difficulty in determining whether an applicant meets the DREAM Act’s amnesty requirements, coupled with the overworked nature of the immigration bureaucracy, fraud could be a significant problem.
This study is very helpful in knowing how many illegal aliens likely truly qualify for the amnesty under the bill. But it also notes all kinds of other illegal aliens who probably will never have to go home if the bill passes because they are in the close family of the amnestied illegals or because they will be able to cheat the system.
Think of it this way: Congress passes DREAM and in essence gives a CAN'T DEPORT ME card to the 2.1 million illegals.
Do you think the feds will then deport their illegal parents and leave the amnestied teenagers without adult supervision?
And if the feds decide to keep their hands off the parents and give a full amnesty to the 2.1 million, do you believe the feds will then deport the other nearly 1 million siblings who didn't qualify for the amnesty?
You know how this would play out.
DREAM would give an amnesty to a bunch of illegal kids and a de facto amnesty to their whole nuclear families.
Did somebody say "backdoor blanket amnesty?"
When you are talking to fence-straddling offices, you have to make sure the staffers are understanding that DREAM means a whole lot of amnesty goin' on.
One point that many of the fence-straddling Senators seem to care about is how this DREAM amnesty would affect future illegal immigration.
We already established above that it would reward huge numbers of illegal aliens with citizenship or de facto amnesty.
That would be a tremendous incentive for future illegal immigration if foreign nationals don't believe we have our enforcement house in order.
Instead of passing legislation to improve the lack of enforcement in this country that allowed at least 12 million illegal aliens to settle here, Senators are trying to just continue the 21-year pattern of giving rewards to illegal aliens.
When we defeated the enforcement/amnesty bill last spring, the majority voice around the country was that we wanted ENFORCEMENT ONLY. Instead, Senators Reid, Durbin, Hagel and Lugar are trying to force us to swallow AMNESTY ONLY.
Your phone calls have to break through with Senate staffs that no amnesty of any kind is acceptable while the country is in a state of lawlessness.
PHONE SENATE SWITCHBOARD AT:
202-224-3121