What just happened:
Shortly before 1 p.m., 68
Senators voted for S. 744 in the all-important final cloture vote. It
needed 60 votes. This assures its final passage by the Senate (only 50
votes needed) later today. (See
who voted for cloture below.)
The bad news:
If eventually signed into law, this bill would threaten to knock
millions of Americans out of the middle class by flooding their
occupations with 33 million foreign citizens who are offered lifetime
work permits over the next decade. Can you believe 68 U.S.
Senators voted for that?
The willingness of every single Democratic Senator and almost a third
of Republicans to accept the corporate lobbyists' insistence that our
country faces devastating labor shortages is disheartening to all of us
who have fought so hard to protect the 20 million Americans who can't
find a full-time job, and the millions more who have seen their real
wages declining for decades during a worker surplus.
What's next, and the good news about
your efforts thus far:
Now, we must turn our full efforts to the U.S. House of
Representatives and another huge grassroots effort in July. But this will
be only a three-week fight before the month-long August recess.
There is no question that the five-month opposition that all of
you have waged is having good results in the House, where the Senate bill
is facing an increasingly hostile reception.
If the House refuses to move a giant overall amnesty, it doesn't
matter what the Senate has done.
For all of you who have spent so much of your time recently in this
fight, you need a respite. I urge you to take a bit of a breather from
activism this next week, celebrate our nation's Independence Day, enjoy
your families and friends. You've earned it.
As for today, it sure would be great if you took a moment to
make an on-line donation to re-build the C-4 activism political battle
fund for our big July House Battle!
For example, Republican Bob Corker, the Senator who rescued the S. 744
amnesty from defeat last week with a fig-leaf border control amendment,
admitted on the floor this morning that the bill is extremely unpopular
back in his state of Tennessee.
All of us at NumbersUSA thank you for everything you have done thus
far. And we thank you for all Americans who will benefit if the House
blocks the incredibly harmful provisions of S. 744.
Even if the House passes an absolutely wonderful immigration bill --
such as the enforcement legislation recently passed overwhelmingly by the
Judiciary Committee -- that would give Senate leaders the opportunity to
ask for a joint Senate/House "Conference Committee" which would
split the difference between that very good bill and the Senate monstrosity.
If a Conference compromise bill were to include an amnesty, both the
Senate and House would need to vote for it, without opportunity for
amendment. The general thinking here in Washington
is that most House Democrats would vote for the Conference
"report" bill and very likely the needed couple dozen or so
House Republicans would, too..
We must re-build our battle funds for the July fight.
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Help us re-build our battle funds for the July fight.
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Today, 68 Senators cast votes that will be very difficult to ever
redeem with future actions.
After all the promises of "enforcement first," these
Senators accepted an entirely "amnesty first" bill that in the
first few months would give work permits and legalization to some 11
million foreign citizens who either (a) crossed the border illegally,
most of them by paying drug cartels and many of them by helping the
cartels move drugs, or who (b) violated the promises on their vacation
and guest visas and illegally took U.S. jobs (often through identity
theft and fraud) and a share of the taxpayer-provided infrastructure.
Every single Democratic Senator
voted YES to the amnesty and to the arguments of
corporate lobbyists that a nation -- with 20 million Americans unable to
find full-time jobs in a country plagued with labor shortages -- must
give out 33 million new lifetime work permits to foreign citizens over
the next decade.
And these Republican Senators
voted YES to the same provisions, breaking with the
majority of their Party and all their Party leaders in the Senate:
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Chiesa (R-NJ)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Flake (R-AZ)
Graham (R-SC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Kirk (R-IL)
McCain (R-AZ)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Rubio (R-FL)
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