Subject: 3 more illegal-alien bills pass House      From:   Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA Date:   Thursday 21SEP06     11:30 p.m. EDT   UPDATE: 3 more bills pass House to reduce illegal-alien population -- Senate debates fence bill DEAR FRIENDS OF REDUCED IMMIGRATION, The U.S. House of Representatives passed three more bills today that would bring about moderate increases in enforcement against illegal immigration. It is all part of an ATTRITION THROUGH ENFORCEMENT strategy that avoids both mass deportations and mass amnesty. The idea is to make life less and less comfortable for illegal aliens so they will voluntarily deport themselves. All three passed easily and now head to the Senate where it remains unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Frist (R-TN) will allow them to come up for a vote next week, which is the last week Congress will be in session before the November elections. Pres. Bush said this week he will sign the bills if they come to him -- even though he would prefer that they included massive new foreign worker programs and some kind of legalization for illegal aliens already here. Although these bills don't excite me all that much, they certainly excited the open borders lobby. The American Bar Association, for example, lobbied Congress hard to defeat all three bills, saying they would make America less free and less just. I hope all of you lawyers among our members are as outraged as I am that the ABA is now an aggressive promoter of amnesties for illegal aliens and opponent of almost every effort to slow down illegal immigration. (I'm not exaggerating; the ABA argues explicitly for amnesties and guestworker programs.) You would think the ABA, of all organizations, would back respect for the rule of law. (If any of you lawyers wants to send a draft talking-point sheet for phone calls in to ABA headquarters, we'll be happy to see it.) If you were regularly visiting our Legislative Action Center today, you were able to keep up with all congressional immigration action as it happened. Don't wait for email reports from me; just use the link on the Home page, or go directly to: http://www.numbersusa.com/hottopic/congress.html You can go to that page now for additional information on the bills that were passed by the House today. H.R. 6095 ... Passed 277-140 Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006 This includes a very small part of the CLEAR ACT which we have promoted for several years. What passed today basically reaffirms the inherent authority of state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws. It doesn't seem like it adds much. But perhaps it is a strong symbol to all the local governments around the country who just now are flexing their enforcement muscles to try to break up illegal populations in their communities -- and that have all kinds of groups threatening to take them to court to stop them. (I probably should remind you that NumbersUSA has a major program of helping local officials to disrupt the illegal-alien economies. That effort continues to bear fruit, as attested by almost daily headlines.) H.R. 6095 also overturns a horrible 1988 court injunction that impedes the Federal government’s ability to remove illegal aliens from El Salvador on an expedited basis. This injunction has created terribly troubling loopholes that has fostered contempt for the rule of law in many communities. Here is how the Parties voted: YES Republicans 215 Democrats 62 NO Republicans 5 Democrats 134 Independent 1 Four or five years ago, we rarely could get 10 Democrats to vote with us on these kinds of bill. Then, a couple of years ago, we started getting 30-40 Democrats on nearly every vote. Now, it seems like there are more than 60 Democrats who usually vote with us. That certainly happened last week on the fence vote. Check out who voted which way at: http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2006&rollnumber=468 H.R. 6094 ... Passed 328-95 Community Protection Act of 2006 This bill would provide for the detention of dangerous aliens, the removal of deportable criminal aliens, and the inadmissibility and deportability of aliens participating in street gang activity. View the roll call at: http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2006&rollnumber=465 This was an especially wide-margin victory. It is interesting looking through the 95 names of Members of Congress who are so hard core in their protection of illegal aliens, they couldn't even vote for this bill. But this got the majority of Democrats, as well as nearly all Republicans. YES Republicans 222 Democrats 105 Independent 1 NO Republicans 4 Democrats 91 H.R. 4830 ... Passed 422-0 The Tunnel Bill This would create explicit penalties for construction and/or use of a border tunnel. Because there had not been explicit laws against digging networks of tunnels under our borders, this bill was overdue. Apparently not a single Member of Congress is willing to face voters this fall and explain why he/she wanted to protect the tunnels.   WHAT'S COMING UP? Senate Judiciary Chairman Specter (R-PA) and several Democratic leaders continue to complain about the possibility of Senate Majority Leader Frist (R-TN) bringing the House enforcement measures to a vote without giving Senators a chance to add an amnesty to the legislation. Sen. Specter has been the most explicit in the shameful strategy. Specter has said that he thinks the enforcement measures for security are necessary but that he doesn't want to provide that security now because it would take away from him bargaining chips to get a massive new guestworker program. In other words, he is holding security hostage to his insistence that we can't have border security until he is able to deliver to today's Robber Barrons all the foreign labor they desire. We've actually suspected all along that a lot of Senators are exactly that cavalier about Americans' safety. But it wasn't until this week that Republican Specter and Democratic Leader Reid (D-NV) publicly confirmed that their main interest in enforcement is as something to help them gain amnesties and guestworkers. Keep checking NumbersUSA home page and corkboard for updates: www.NumbersUSA.com Thanks for all that faxing and phoning this week, -- ROY     This may be a good time for you to make sure that you've let us know all of the areas you are interested in. 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