How to stop the AgJobs amnesty
By Chris Kelly   ·   April 18, 2005 04:10 PM

From a FAIR action alert:

Thanks for reaching out to your senators last week and urging opposition to AgJOBS and other immigration liberalizing amendments. Believe me, your faxes and phone calls are making a HUGE impact! We held off amnesty last week, but the fight is far from over!

Tomorrow (April 19) the Senate will vote on the Craig AgJOBS amnesty for illegal aliens and the Mikulski amendment to increase the supply of H-2B seasonal guestworkers. We need to kick it up a notch and really pound the Senate between now and Tuesday to defeat these measures...

You can send free FAXes about these amnesties at that link.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) is trying to attach the AgJobs amnesty to a spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. This isn't the first time he and Sen. Ted Kennedy have tried something like this.

Note that even Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is opposed to AgJobs:

Opposition to the proposal is not limited to the GOP. One of Craig's harshest critics on the Senate floor was Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California, who said the program offered "nirvana" to Mexican workers who might be contemplating crossing the border illegally to seek work in the United States.

If they can make it across the border and work 100 hours on a farm, Feinstein said, they could hope to qualify for permanent residency for themselves and their immediate families.

"This is a bill of enormous dimensions," she said. "This could be the largest immigration program in history. It could bring millions of people into this country - workers, their children, their spouses."

My links on AgJobs start here. Note that Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) is one of the authors of the House version of AgJobs. On 9/14/04 the Salt Lake Tribune printed "Cannon drums on immigration despite voters":

...a survey of Cannon's financial disclosures since 1996 shows Washington, D.C., and out-of-state interests steadily replacing his Utah support. Eight years ago, 85 percent of the individuals backing Cannon hailed from Utah; today locals comprise just 16 percent of his donor base.

A close look at who is giving also shows a sudden jump in contributions from immigration attorneys - 23 of whom have poured $20,900 into Cannon's war chest... At least five of the attorneys serve on the executive committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which helped Cannon draft the "AgJobs" bill...

If you want to stop AgJobs and the other amnesties, please contact your representatives.

UPDATE: AgJobs has failed. But, see this:

...Noting that President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) "continue to stress the importance of addressing comprehensive immigration reform this year," Craig pledged to continue working with his measure's co-sponsor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), "to bring this before the Senate sooner rather than later..."

You can see how your senators voted here.



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