Important Immigration Enforcement Amendments are On the Line!

A very timely update from http://www.fairus.com/





Important Immigration Enforcement Amendments are On the Line!


Help FAIR Ensure These Important Amendments Survive Conference!


The Senate is set to adjourn for its annual summer recess at the end of this week, and the House of Representatives has already adjourned for its summer break. With Members of Congress set to return home, one of the important items of unfinished business that will they will face when they return to Washington in September is the Fiscal Year 2010 Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill (H.R. 2892).
If you've been following FAIR's monitoring of the DHS spending bill over the past two months, you already know that this legislation has passed both the House and the Senate. Before the bill passed the Senate, true immigration reformers scored long-awaited legislative victories with the adoption of four commonsense amendments:


1.) Sessions E-Verify Amendment #1371 — Offered by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Amendment #1371 makes the E-Verify program permanent. E-Verify is the online, electronically operated system that allows employers to quickly and easily check the work authorization status of their new employees. Without the Sessions Amendment, E-Verify is set to expire on September 30, 2009. By making E-Verify permanent, the Sessions Amendment will prevent supporters of mass amnesty from using any further extension of E-Verify as leverage to try to pass an amnesty bill for at least 12 million illegal aliens. In addition, the permanent extension would ensure that this important tool will always be available to good-faith employers. The Sessions Amendment also requires all employers who do business with the federal government to use E-Verify on their new hires, as well as existing employees assigned to affected federal contracts. This represents a huge leap towards finally ensuring that the federal government only does business with contractors who hire a legal workforce!


2.) DeMint Border Fence Amendment #1399 — Offered by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), Amendment #1399 requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to complete almost 700 miles of double-layered reinforced fencing along the southwest border by the end of 2010. The DeMint Amendment would direct DHS to complete the border fence as Congress originally intended when it passed the Secure Fence Act of 2006. DHS has been constructing fencing that would prevent vehicular border crossings, but has only completed construction of 32 miles of double-layer fencing to deter pedestrian border crossings. The DeMint Amendment is critical to ensure that the border fence will also reduce illegal alien foot traffic.


3.) Vitter "No-Match" Amendment #1375 — Offered by Senator David Vitter (R-LA), Amendment #1375 prohibits any of the funding in the FY2010 Homeland Security spending bill from being used to rescind a DHS final rule that will notify employers whose employees name does not match their Social Security numbers (SSNs) and directs employers to act when they receive these notices. According to DHS, "most" workers with unmatched SSNs are illegal aliens. The Vitter Amendment would open up jobs held by illegal aliens by providing an important immigration enforcement tool that addresses these no-matches!


4.) Grassley E-Verify Amendment #1415 — Offered by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), Amendment #1415 would give employers who are enrolled in E-Verify the option to use the program to check the work authorization status of existing employees in addition to new hires. Currently, E-Verify can only be used to check the status of new hires. With unemployment now at a 25-year high, the Grassley Amendment would act as a true stimulus plan for unemployed Americans! If an employer discovers illegal aliens on his payroll, that employer can free up jobs for Americans who are out of work!


The passage of these amendments is great news for Americans who support the enforcement of our immigration laws. However, the battle to ensure that these provisions become law isn't over yet. The DHS spending bill is now set to move to a House-Senate conference to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation. The House version of the bill does not contain any of the amendments listed above. This means that the Conference Report could drop any or all of these measures.
You can help FAIR ensure that these amendments survive the conference process! Here's what you can do:
Your Representative and Senators will be home in your district and state through the rest of August and the first week of September. Many of them will hold town hall meetings where constituents like you will be able to ask them questions. If you can make it to one of these meetings, tell your elected official that you support the Sessions, DeMint, Vitter, and Grassley immigration enforcement amendments that were adopted as part of the DHS spending bill. Ask them if they will do everything they can to ensure that these amendments will be included in the final version of the bill, and ask them if they will vote against the bill if it doesn't include these amendments!
If you can't make it to a town hall meeting, here's a list of the Senators who have already been appointed to the Conference Committee (the House hasn't appointed its conferees yet). We need you to call these Senators and tell them:
You support the Sessions, DeMint, Vitter, and Grassley immigration enforcement and border security amendments that were adopted as part of the DHS spending bill.
You expect them to do everything in their power to ensure that these amendments will be included in the final version of the bill.
You won't accept any effort to strip these commonsense measures from the bill during the Conference or during any backroom negotiations.


Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia): 202-224-3954

Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii): 202-224-3934

Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont): 202-224-4242

Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland): 202-224-4654

Patty Murray (D-Washington): 202-224-2621

Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana): 202-224-5824

Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey): 202-224-3224

Jon Tester (D-Montana): 202-224-2644

Arlen Specter (D-Pennsylvania): 202-224-4254

George Voinovich (R-Ohio): 202-224-3353

Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi): 202-224-5054

Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire): 202-224-3324

Richard Shelby (R-Alabama): 202-224-5744

Sam Brownback (R-Kansas): 202-224-6521

Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): 202-224-6665


Find the phone numbers of your Senators here.