From - Thu Mar 14 23:29:03 2002 From: "Norm³©®" Newsgroups: alt.politics.immigration Subject: 245i amnesty is now in the Senate Lines: 143 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Message-ID: X-Complaints-To: abuse@usenetserver.com X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly. NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 14:19:18 EST Organization: Bellsouth.Net Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 14:21:04 -0500 Path: vienna7.his.com!vienna2.his.com!newsfeed4.cidera.com!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!peer1-sjc1.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: vienna7.his.com alt.politics.immigration:2537 The battle is on for the Section 245i amnesty in the Senate. Here is what I have for you in this e-mail: 1. ACTION---Your phone calls to the Senate now: "Strip or defeat" 2. INFO---Do you want more background info? 3. INFO---Washington Times features the role of your phone calls 4. INFO---Talk shows made a big difference 5. INFO---Report Cards and Profiles reflect last night's action ============================================== 1. ACTION---Your phone calls to the Senate now =============================================== The Senate will try to pass last night's Section 245i bill this week. Our advice to you when you make your phone calls is to carry this message: "Strip or defeat." Read on. Although Senate Democratic leaders appear surprisingly eager to help GOP Pres. Bush score a PR victory in Mexico before he travels down there, there will be barriers to quick and easy passage. Contrary to some published reports, Sen. Byrd (D-WV) hates the 245i amnesty and very well may hold it up. There also may be a chance of a Republican hold. As a result of the great unexpected showing of opposition in the House last night, the staff of one GOP Senator called Rosemary Jenks, our director of government relations. He expressed a great deal of interest in opposing the amnesty just before President Bush went on national TV extolling the glories of the 245i "reform" while saying he absolutely opposes a "blanket amnesty." If the 245i amnesty is blocked from the fast-track process on the Senate floor, then it will have to be brought subject to amendments. When you call your Senators, urge them to introduce an amendment to H.Res. 365 (passed by the House last night) that would strip the SEction 245i amnesty from the bill. That would leave all the good visa-tracking stuff that the House already passed in December. If they can't strip out the amnesty, we urge that the bill be defeated, even though it has lots of good stuff in it. The Senate has all the good stuff in HR 3525 waiting to be considered. Defeat H.Res 365 with the amnesty and pass HR3525. So we advocate a "strip or defeat" message. As always, we recognize that you recognize that you are an independent citizen and will deliver whatever message you choose. So you can use all the same arguments you used in the House. Just ask for a different action (offering an amnesty-stripping amendment). The Senate switchboard number is: 202-224-3121 Or find the direct numbers on our Contacts page: http://www.numbersusa.com/congressinfo/ ================================================ 2. INFO---Do you want more background info? ================================================ If you registered to receive only Action Alerts or only Urgent Action Alerts, you won't get most background info on developments like the information contained in this e-mail. The info comes here only because there is an urgent action requested at the top. If you want to see the background info even when there isn't an action alert, check your NumbersUSA registration and click on the "alerts and updates" option. You do that by going to the home page and looking in the middle section where it allows you to "change user information." =============================================================== 3. INFO---Washington Times features the role of your phone calls ================================================================ http://www.numbersusa.com/hottopic/index.html This story gives a lot of credit for the unexpected opposition last night to grassroots citizen involvement. Interestingly, we don't really have a relationship with the congressman who named NumbersUSA phoners as a powerful force on this, but he obviously saw what you all did. Nearly every staffer we've run into last night and today has talked about being "swamped with calls" the last several days. The second paragraph in the story says this: Opponents credited a furious grass-roots campaign by immigration reform groups that nearly succeeded in defeating the measure. ================================================================ 4. Talk shows made a big difference ================================================================ Some are giving a lot of credit for the better-than-expected showing last night to the role of the nation's talk shows. We were not able to monitor them, but we have been told that there was a great deal of activity over the last few days and that the shows generated a lot of phone calls. Given the fact the Section 245i did not generate big talk show activity when it came up in November and a year ago, we have to believe that part of the reason for all the extra activity was all of you who took our talk show list last week and put it to major use. Thanks again. =============================================================== 5. INFO---Report Cards and Profiles reflect last night's action ================================================================ All of the immigration Report Cards and Profiles have been updated with last night's actions. We have made modifications on around 2,000 different pages. We have been pleased that many staffs have been calling to talk about their grades. We think after seeing copies handed to their offices they are a little troubled about how this might look in their districts. Some of the staffs with an "A" grade are wanting to make announcements in their districts to tout their good work. PROFILES: Remember that the Profiles on NumbersUSA.com can be reached on the Home Page by clicking on the right-column link CONGRESS VOTE RECORDS. The Profiles allow you to see a description of every single immigration action of a Member on one page. There are no ratings. REPORT CARDS: You can get to the Report Cards easily by typing in: www.CongressGrades.org Or you can click on the link for Report Card that is near the top of every Profile. If you are not familiar with these tools, I hope you will take some time to see what is there. Most people are amazed at how much information, comparisons and analysis they can get out of these very simply displayed pages. -- ROY --