[This is cross-posted from Potomac Tea Party Report]
Yesterday I said Asylum was the great American immigration scam, but then there is the Diversity Visa Lottery and Temporary Protected Status, etc.—I just can’t make up my mind which is the most outrageous! And, next time someone says ‘I’m o.k. with legal immigration, it’s illegal immigration that I don’t like,’ ponder the Diversity Visa Lottery.
I venture to guess many of you may never have heard of one more of our LEGAL immigration programs that is truly outrageous— on a par perhaps with the Temporary Protected Status I’ve written about here and plan to write more about today or tomorrow.
Right now I am talking about the Diversity Visa Lottery! Every year in its infinite wisdom, the US State Department runs a lottery for immigrants to come to the US PERMANENTLY called the Diversity Visa Lottery (because we don’t have enough diversity!). Go, here (faint of heart? do not open!) and see the list of the one hundred thousand semi-finalists in the 2011 lottery (12.1 million applied).
Just for fun I picked out the countries with the most applicants in the final round:
Ethiopia: 5,200
Kenya: 4,689
Egypt: 4,251
Bangladesh: 5,999
Iran: 2,819
Tomorrow the House Judiciary Committee is voting on a bill to kill this program and NumbersUSA urges everyone in the following House districts (listed below) to contact your member of Congress this afternoon and early tomorrow.
Here is what Numbers says:
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee votes tomorrow (Thursday) on what would be the first law to REDUCE immigration since 1924!!!!
It would be a small but significant step of killing the Visa Lottery and ending the practice of randomly selecting more than 50,000 new permanent immigrant workers every year from countries that have the least ties with the United States.
With 22 million Americans unable to find a job, there is no need for the Visa Lottery that randomly doles out 50,000 visas to individuals with no special skills. These people will invariably compete with America’s unemployed for the few jobs our economy is creating.
The visa lottery promotes massive illegal immigration by people who think they may some day win the lottery and be allowed to stay in the United States. The late Barbara Jordan, as Chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, recommended the elimination of the visa lottery. [People who have already gotten into the US either illegally or on some other visa can apply for this lottery too—ed]
Although the Democrats are most likely to vote against this bill, don’t let them off the hook. Demand to know why they would support giving away 50,000 U.S. jobs a year through the lottery instead of letting the unemployed in their own District have those jobs.
Here are the Members of the Committee who need to hear from you! Tell them no changes, no shifting of the 50,000 number to some other immigration program.
PHONE NUMBERS for JUDICIARY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
ARIZONA
REP. TRENT FRANKS 202-225-4576
REP. BEN QUAYLE 202-225-3361
ARKANSAS
REP. TIM GRIFFIN 202-225-2506
CALIFORNIA
REP. HOWARD BERMAN 202-225-4695
REP. JUDY CHU 202-225-5464
REP. ELTON GALLEGLY 202-225-5811
REP. DARRELL ISSA 202-225-3906
REP. ZOE LOFGREN 202-225-3072
REP. DAN LUNGREN 202-225-5716
REP. MAXINE WATERS 202-225-2201
GEORGIA
REP. HANK JOHNSON 202-225-1605
FLORIDA
REP. SANDY ADAMS 202-225-2706
REP. TED DEUTCH 202-225-3001
REP. DENNIS ROSS 202-225-1252
ILLINOIS
REP. MIKE QUIGLEY 202-225-4061
INDIANA
REP. MIKE PENCE 202-225-3021
IOWA
REP. STEVE KING 202-225-4426
MICHIGAN
REP. JOHN CONYERS 202-225-5126
NEW YORK
REP. JERROLD NADLER 202-225-5635
NORTH CAROLINA
REP. HOWARD COBLE 202-225-3065
REP. MELVIN WATT 202-225-1510
OHIO
REP. STEVE CHABOT 202-225-2216
REP. JIM JORDAN 202-225-2676
PENNSYLVANIA
REP. TOM MARINO 202-225-3731
SOUTH CAROLINA
REP. TREY GOWDY 202-225-6030
TENNESSEE
REP. STEVE COHEN 202-225-3265
TEXAS
REP. LOUIE GOHMERT 202-225-3035
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE 202-225-3816
REP. TED POE 202-225-6565
REP. LAMAR SMITH 202-225-4236
UTAH
REP. JASON CHAFFETZ 202-225-7751
VIRGINIA
REP. RANDY FORBES 202-225-6365
REP. BOBBY SCOTT 202-225-8351
WISCONSIN
REP. JIM SENSENBRENNER 202-225-5101
Here is more at NumbersUSA about the bill, check out whether your Member of Congress is a co-sponsor! I note that Maryland’s two Republican Members of Congress are NOT co-sponsors.
Watch NumbersUSA instructional videos on Immigration numbers, here.