WE WON!!! Our/Your Defense Stopped Bad Bills

Since 12-10-06

From: Roy Beck NumbersUSA [mailto:immigrationinfo@numbersusa.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 4:38 PM
Subject: WE WON!!! Our/Your Defense Stopped Bad Bills

Congress went home -- No immigration increases!!!! Thanks to all of you

WE WON!

This two-year Congress came to a close early this morning.

Everything looks good.

Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team must still go through the minutia of all that passed in the final day. But we feel confident -- based on assurances from our ally Members of Congress -- that you and we beat back all attempts to increase immigration.

The swarms of industry lobbyists were unable to prevail over the combination of clock pressure and the unrelenting phone/fax opposition of voters back home.

The Associated Press reports that Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) gaveled the House to a close for his last time about 3:15 a.m. The Senate adjourned at about 4:40 a.m.

As Will Rogers might have said, "America was safe again at 4:41 a.m."

NO EXTRA FOREIGN NURSES!

Hutchison NURSE CURSE Fails

Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) made a last-ditch attempt Friday afternoon to sneak through an increase of around 100,000 in next year's importation of permanent foreign nurses.

Amazingly, even though we didn't reach most of you "Total Activists" with word of the threat until around 5 p.m., your phone calls so swamped Senate offices that everybody involved in the anti-American-nurse initiative pulled back.

Because of your actions, American nurses next year are less likely to see their working conditions deteriorate -- and more nurses who have been on the sidelines may re-enter the job market.

NO EXTRA H-1B VISAS OR PERMANENT FOREIGN  PROGRAMMERS & ENGINEERS!

Cornyn HEX ON TECHS Fails

Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) apparently used up nearly all of his energy this week doing the bidding of the nation's high-tech industry (rather than the nation's high-tech workers) to keep it supplied with cheap foreign programmers and engineers.

Publicly and privately, he proclaimed his dire warning that tech businesses were withering on the vine because of a huge shortage of workers.

I believe that your deluge of Senate offices with the truth about unemployed and underemployed American tech workers must have been the key reason why H-1B visas and worker greencards were not increased.

VIETNAM FREE TRADE  AGREEMENT FREE OF EXTRA FOREIGN VISAS

Free TRADERS No Longer Immigration TRAITORS

Our staff did NOT find troublesome immigration provisions in the Vietnam trade agreement approved by Congress Friday.

If we're right, this represents quite a milestone: A free trade agreement that deals with movement of goods without forcing the movement of foreign workers into U.S. job occupations.

NumbersUSA mobilized its members against the Chile and Singapore free trade agreements in 2003 because they included mandates for more immigration from those countries. Once such immigration provisions are included in trade agreements, international bodies are given control on any disagreements with those aspects of immigration. The power to reduce that immigration is taken out of Congress' hands (and, thus, U.S. citizens' hands) in the future.

We led many of you in heavy protests that led to actions and promises in both the House and Senate that trade agreements in the future should NOT have immigration provisions.

When CAFTA came up in 2005, the most egregious immigration provisions of the Chile and Singapore agreements were gone. But there were enough remaining problems that NumbersUSA again rallied its members against it. CAFTA passed by only 2 votes.

Finally, in the Vietnam trade agreement, we appear to have gotten the "immigration-clean" version we've been seeking. (NumbersUSA does not take a position on any other aspect of trade agreements.)

NO INCREASE IN RATE OF WORSENING CONGESTION & FEDERALLY COERCED  POPULATION GROWTH

More PACK 'EM, STACK 'EM, RACK 'EM Fails

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, many other business lobbies, President Bush, most leftist "immigrant rights" lobbies and the majority of newspaper editorial boards across the country have waged a public disinformation campaign trying to persuade Americans that there are NOT ENOUGH people in the United States.

They push for more coercive population growth by the federal government, despite the fact that America's current population boom is the largest in an already explosive-growth history.

Unfortunately, our network did not succeed in this Congress in reducing immigration and, thus, reducing the level of federally coerced human congestion and destruction of natural habitat, farmland and open spaces.

But we DID stop all efforts in Congress to increase immigration, including the McCain/Kennedy and the Hagel/Martinez and the Specter/Kennedy plans to triple immigration levels over current immigration which already is on pace to add more than 100 million people to our local communities in less than 40 years.

NO AMNESTY!

You've heard me say it repeatedly. But I'll say it again:

Nearly every national elite force in America was pushing for an amnesty legalization of some 12 million illegal aliens this year.

Only public sentiment stood in the way.

Through you members of the NumbersUSA network, we were able to leverage that public sentiment and -- combined with efforts by dozens of other groups -- help stop what was supposed to have been a politically inevitable amnesty this year.

President Bush's amnesty failed.

Sen. Kennedy's (D-MA) amnesty failed.

Sen. McCain's (R-AZ) amnesty failed.

The amnesty of the ACLU, the National Council of La Raza, the U.S. Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches and most mainline Protestant national offices, most national Jewish groups -- that amnesty failed.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's amnesty failed, as did that of national restaurant, agricultural growers and hotel associations.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times amnesties failed.

But YOU won!

Local communities won.

As did families, farmland, nature & nurses, techies, Ph.Ds, wages & workers.

ALL AMERICANS HAVE YOU TO THANK

I think all of our many friends on the staffs of Congress would say that the wealthy, powerful cheap-foreign-labor lobbyists would have won if it had not been for your efforts.

I apologize for being so slow to deliver the good news to you. I stayed up until 3 a.m. this morning following the Senate and House action, but finally had to go to bed. My sleep deficit for the whole week caught up to me, and I was in bed 'til noon. Because I had strong assurance that we had won at 3 a.m., I felt safe sleeping -- and allowing the rest of the staff to sleep, also. (But don't wait for me to email me in these situations. You can always check our home page for updates and developments that often appear there before I send you an email about them -- www.NumbersUSA.com.)

I hope you were able to rest last night, knowing you had done what you could as part of the nation's largest citizen network protecting American workers from foreign labor competition.

More than 1.1 million of you have joined the NumbersUSA network to receive our emailed information.

We have no idea about all that all of you have done to help the cause. But we have specific knowledge of direct action from more than 200,000 of you during this Congress.

You PHONERS were PHANTASTIC this week!

I know that the phoning that we have required the last three days is not something that all of you yet feel comfortable doing. But the rest of you also played an important role in this week's defensive victories.

You FAXERS prepared the groundwork for victory over the last two years!

The Members of this Congress have received literally MILLIONS of faxes from the NumbersUSA network members. Thus, when congressional offices get a sudden onslaught of phone calls on a particular day about a particular immigration subject, they know this is not just a shallow flash in the pan phenomenon. They KNOW that there is a deep, tenacious corps of citizens in their district or state which generally feels the same way as the phoners.

WINNING ON DEFENSE
NOW STARTING TO HELP US
WIN ON OFFENSE GOALS

'Attrition Through Enforcement
& Self-Deportation' Is
Reducing Illegal Alien Population

Before you fill my mailbox with complaints that all of what I wrote above is too cheery, let me say to you that I am well aware that our legislative victories were nearly all on defense.

We stopped a ton of really bad stuff.

We passed almost nothing that gives relief from our immigration nightmare.

For years, the other side has had the luxury of just blocking us and knowing that every year legal and illegal immigration will add another 2.5 million people to our communities. Their desire to clog every aspect of American life with millions of new foreign workers and dependents just keeps winning even while we win defensive victories.

If we win every single defensive battle, our quality of life still will deteriorate the next year with the addition of another 2.5 million foreign workers and dependents (new arrivals and births).

But ...

Our fight against illegal immigration is starting to bring us some tangible results.

• Every year, the Bush Administration is slowly beginning to implement more and more of past laws against illegal immigration. Progess is painfully too slow. But it is happening. More enforcement on the border, in workplace, at entry/exit points, etc. All of this is making life marginally less attractive for illegal aliens to stay and for new ones to come in the first place.

• You may have seen news reports this weekend that the Border Patrol is indicating that illegal traffic on the Mexican border is far below a year ago, more than 60% reductions in some places.

• More and more local and state governments are passing their own laws to take away incentives and to make life less comfortable for illegal aliens and the ones who make money off them.

• In many cities and states, illegal aliens are moving out even before the new laws take effect. The exodus is sure to accelerate once enforcement hits its stride.

• The news media will become almost hysterical with human interest stories of illegal aliens moving and claiming that their lives are untenable, as well as overstating how tough enforcement is becoming. All of this will feed even larger hysteria on immigrant radio stations, creating an even greater climate of fear for illegal aliens.

All of this will attack, weaken and perhaps kill the myth long perpetrated by the open borders lobby that mass illegal immigration is inevitable and there is nothing the government can do to slow it down or to make people go home.

The chances are slim that we can get passed immigration reductions over the next two years under open-borders promoters House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV). But if we can continue to stop all bad things from passing, trends to make life miserable for illegal aliens will snowball.

The Census Bureau estimates that last year about 180,000 illegal aliens voluntarily deported themselves out of the United States. They paid their own bus and plane fare.

The trends mentioned above could conceivably raise that number to as much as 500,000 a year during this next Congress.

This can especially be true if the news from Washington is a constant drumbeat of failure of the open-borders lobbies to pass amnesties and massive new guestworker programs.

So, our victories this fall and this Congress set us up well for a strategy over the next two years of:

• primarily defensive victories in Congress

• aggressive offensive victories in city councils and state legislatures

• offensive victories in voter referenda

• offensive victories through congressional and other oversight that speeds the pace of Bush Administration implementation of laws already on the books.

In the meantime, don't think for a moment that the incredibly powerful forces that we have just defeated aren't regrouping and planning more frontal, flank and aerial assaults as soon as the new Congress convenes in January.

But that is January. You all deserve to enjoy the holidays for a few weeks.

I will come back to you next week in our monthly request for voluntary donations to cover another month's expenses. I hope you will open that email and take the time to read the appeal. Our successes this week were made possible by all those who in previous months read those appeals and sent a small donation. This is a mass movement of citizens, for citizens and funded by citizens.

SAVOR THE VICTORY,

-- ROY

P.S. NumbersUSA's financial management meets all the criteria of the IRS as a non-partisan, non-profit organization, and as an authorized charity of the Combined Federal Campaign. Handling of donations is overseen and held accountable by a Board of independent directors and by independent Auditors.