Did You Know...

The obituary for the DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout is premature.

You know this because I’ve been writing about the ceaseless push to pass this brazen shamnesty plan for years.

The Washington Post pronounced it “shelved” over the weekend.

Not so fast.

Via the Hill, the open-borders lobby is claiming momentum:

When House Democrats last week passed the DREAM Act before the Senate had staged its vote, the timing was no accident.

Instead, the chronology was part of a carefully designed strategy — orchestrated, with some tension, between the two chambers — to grant the proposal its greatest shot at success. The fast-evolving process required behind-the-scenes scheduling changes; an 11th hour hearing; constant lobbying from supporters; and a risky-but-successful show of procedural gymnastics in the Senate — all aimed at lending momentum to the hot-button bill in hopes of enacting it by month’s end.

In short, supporters say, the process has infused life into the policy.

“It actually gives us a chance to win,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an advocacy group lobbying for the bill.

Adey Fisseha, policy attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, echoed that message. “It makes it real, and it increases the pressure,” Fisseha said. “They thought they had the votes. They wanted to lock it in. And they did.”

Indeed, had the Senate voted first, the bill likely would have failed, and the House would have lost its appetite to stage a vote at all, according to both supporters and critics of the proposal.

The DREAM Act zealots are targeting Senate Republicans with more protests and hunger strikes. Those Republicans need bucking up.

GOP Sen. Scott Brown has been steady in his opposition to all forms of illegal alien amnesty, but a supportive call (or two or three) would be helpful as he faces a pro-DREAM p.r. onslaught:

A coalition of advocates, educators and religious leaders have scheduled a press conference Monday at Boston City Hall to pressure the Massachusetts Republican to vote for the federal proposal.

Same with Sen. Hutchison:

WASHINGTON – A national Hispanic Republican organization denounced Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s opposition to the DREAM Act on Friday and warned that the stance may hurt her re-election prospects in 2012 should she decide to run.

“We are conservative Republicans who hold traditional military and social values,” the group Somos Republicans wrote in a letter to the senator. “We are troubled by the fact that you failed to recognize that Hispanics in Texas are overwhelmingly in support of the DREAM Act.”

Useful phone numbers for Operation Buck Up:

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON 202-224-5922; 214-361-3500

SEN. SCOTT BROWN 202-224-4543

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN 202-224-2235; 480-897-6289

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE 202-224-5344; 207-874-0883

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI 202-224-6665; 907-271-3735

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS 202-224-2523; 207-945-0417

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK 202-224-6521; 785-233-2503

While you’re at it, you might want to put in a special phone call to retiring open-borders Utah GOP Sen. Bob Bennett (good riddance) and ask him to name names of the Republicans who support massive, costly illegal alien amnesties that undermine immigration enforcement and put law-breaking workers and students ahead of law-abiding ones. Do tell:

Outgoing Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) said Friday he’s privately discussed the prospect that Republicans would pursue their own version of the DREAM Act next year.

Bennett said he would vote for the immigration legislation, which gives immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children a conditional pathway to citizenship, if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brought it to the floor under the right conditions.

If that fails, the outgoing senator said, Republicans have privately discussed the prospects of writing and passing a version of the DREAM Act that could make its way through Congress.

“Now, I know a lot of my colleagues are not happy to vote for it, and I don’t think the votes … are there to pass it in this Congress,” Bennett said in his final conference call with Utah reporters. “And as I’ve talked, particularly to my Republican friends, I’ve said we really need to do this. Their reaction has been to me, privately, ‘You’re right. We do really need to do it.’”