I was away yesterday at a Refugee meeting in Lancaster, PA which I’ll tell you about shortly, and when I heard the news during my long drive home that Amnesty for 11-20 million illegal aliens might be on the horizon I wondered to myself what that will do to refugee resettlement.
The contractors, here are the top nine, who bring (some say drop-off) refugees in your towns and cities are struggling to find work for legal refugees (half are not finding any work!), and decent apartments (not in slums!), and to get them enrolled in welfare programs, and if the monster S.744 passes there will be a slush fund so these very same contractors will get federal money to process even more immigrants through a failing system.
Other than more money coming their way, I can’t for the life of me understand why those nine major contractors and their hundreds of subcontractors are lobbying for amnesty and the inevitable job competition for the legal refugees they can’t properly manage now!
I also predict an even greater public backlash against refugees if amnesty comes to pass because the general public will feel that immigrants are being shoved down their throats and taking their jobs. The average American citizen does not understand the difference between the federal programs and the people they permit to enter the US.
Here is what Roy Beck at NumbersUSA reported about the vote yesterday. If you are not on Numbers’ e-mail alert list, go to their website and please sign up.
DEAR FRIENDS,
We have a ton of work ahead of us, but you have done an amazing job thus far with your phone calls and faxes and personal appearances.
The Senate a couple of minutes ago passed the Motion to Proceed to bring S. 744 to the floor for debate.
Two hours ago, 82 Senators voted YES to stop a filibuster. That vote allowed the Motion to Proceed.
But don’t be alarmed by that number, even though it is far above the 60 votes needed on the all-important final filibuster vote later this month.
A number of the Senators who voted to proceed have announced over the last few days that they will eventually vote against the b ill unless it is significantly changed on the floor. And the changes they are demanding are being called unacceptable on the floor right now by Chief Amnestymeister Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
We have no doubt that your tens of thousands of calls the last two days planted very powerful seeds among many of the YES voters today that makes them realize that they are going to have a very hard time voting YES at the end when the question is not debate but passage.
The 15 Senators who today said that this bill is so hopelessly out of touch with the needs of America that it shouldn’t even be debated included four Senators who a couple of weeks ago were being touted in the media as prime swing voters who would push the final vote over 60:
Kirk of Illinois
Crapo of Idaho
Risch of Idaho
Barrasso of Wyoming
Congratulations to all of you from those three states who have done such a remarkable job of helping those Senators understand both where the voters are in your state and also the moral and practical imperative of stopping this bill.
Back in 2007, we also lost big on this procedural first vote to bring that amnesty bill to the floor. But we built on the solid opposition of a strong bloc of Senators to kill the amnesty on the final vote later.
HERE ARE TODAY’S CHAMPIONS WHO TRIED TO STOP THE AMNESTY BILL IN ITS TRACKS
ALABAMA: Sessions & Shelby
ARKANSAS: Boozman
IDAHO: Crapo & Risch
ILLINOIS: Kirk
IOWA: Grassley
KANSAS: Roberts
LOUISIANA: Vitter
OKLAHOMA: Inhofe
SOUTH CAROLINA: Scot
TEXAS: Cruz
UTAH: Lee
WYOMING: Barrasso & Enzi
Everybody else voted YES, except for three who didn’t vote:
ALASKA: Murkowski
ARIZONA: McCain
OKLAHOMA: Coburn
I have no idea at this time why they didn’t vote. Murkowski and Coburn have both made strong nods toward voting for the bill recently but have been hammered by the voters.
Senator Jeff Session a champion for common sense! The numbers are just too high!
Sen. Sessions (R-Ala.) did a magnificent job in his speech on the floor today, speaking up not only for the 20 million unemployed but for the millions more Americans whose real wages have been driven downward by 30 yea rs of high immigration.
He painted the picture very clearly that this is a bill about helping those affluent Americans who happen also to be greedy at the expense of the most struggling members of our society, and at the expense of the taxpayers.
If you haven’t gotten in gear yet to oppose S.744, the next couple of weeks are critical. The Senate will proceed now to floor debate, so contact your US Senators. The House will be crafting a bill, so contact your Member of the House—NOW! Tell them to stop the bipartisan Obama/Schumer/Rubio destruction of America.
By the way, at RRW we believe at minimum all refugee and asylum changes should be stripped from the bill because the program is in dire need of Congressional review on its own—especially in light of the Boston Marathon bombing by a political refugee.
Addendum: If you’ve never watched Roy Beck’s video—Immigration by the Numbers—take a few minutes and watch it now.