Bush-Kennedy Bill Up For Crucial Vote today…from FAIR

Capitol Hill news outlets are reporting that the Senate bill will have the first crucial vote on the revived Bush-Kennedy bill late Tuesday morning. The first vote will be a CLOTURE vote on a motion to proceed. This vote, which needs 60 yeas to pass, will determine if the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill can be brought back up on the floor of the Senate.

Last week, the proponents of the Bush-Kennedy bill began laying the ground work for its resurrection. First, Senator Kennedy took the bill, incorporated amendments that passed, and the $4.4 billion funding provision and reintroduced the bill as S.1639. From there, Majority Leader Reid was able to invoke Senate Rule 14 to skip the committee process and bring the bill directly to the floor.

If the first cloture vote succeeds, Senate Leadership has devised a scheme to tightly control the floor and limit debate on amendments to ensure that the Bush-Kennedy bill has the best chance of passing. First, the grand bargainers huddled together in secret and came up with a list of 22 to 24 amendments they deemed worthy of debate. Then, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would use a maneuver called a “clay pigeon amendment” – an amendment that combines all the amendments into one – to control the floor. Senator Reid will offer the clay pigeon amendment, move to divide it back into 22 or so amendments, and have a vote on each one. This prevents Senators from objecting to each amendment as they would otherwise be brought to the floor. Once the votes are taken, Senator Reid will declare he as kept his end of the bargain and move to the second cloture vote. By using the clay pigeon maneuver, the grand bargainers will control the floor, spin the debate, but claim to have given their opponents a fair process.

FAIR is urging all members, activists, and friends to contact their Senators and Leadership offices to urge Senators to VOTE NO ON BOTH CLOTURE VOTES. Please tell your Senators that the American people deserve more from the United States Senate than an ill-conceived bill drafted in secret to appease special interests. Tell your Senators that S.1639 is a bad bill that will only make an unacceptable situation even worse.

At this point in time, most observers feel the votes are too close to call. President Bush used his weekly radio address to urge Senators to pass the Bush-Kennedy bill. In addition, FAIR’s Senate sources are reporting that the White House has been lobbying intensely behind the scenes, attempting to twist arms in order to save what many consider to be President Bush’s top domestic priority—amnesty. Whether the administration’s last ditch efforts will work is still unclear. Last week, the grand bargainers suffered several major setbacks when Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) all announced they would vote NO on cloture. In addition, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told the Associated Press that he had misgivings about the bill and that, while he would see how the amendment process turned out, was not sure how he would vote. Finally, last week the powerful AFL-CIO labor organization officially announced its opposition to the bill because of its massive guest worker program.

Stay tuned to FAIR for updates on the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill…

CBO Estimates that Bush-Kennedy Bill Will Only Reduce Illegal Immigration by 13 Percent!

On June 4th, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a cost estimate of S.1348 (now S.1639) which estimated that the Bush-Kennedy bill would not do much to solve the illegal immigration crisis facing the United States. Specifically, the CBO report estimated that even if fully funded, the Bush-Kennedy bill would reduce illegal immigration at the border by 25% but would at the same time actually increase the number of illegal aliens through aliens who overstay their Y guest worker and H-1B visas (increased in the bill). Thus, the net reduction in illegal immigration will only be about 13 percent over the next 20 years!

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) last week sent a letter to his Senate colleagues summarizing the CBO report and pointing out the importance of its findings. He wrote, “I believe you will be as shocked as I was” when reading the report. Sessions lamented that while proponents of the Bush-Kennedy legislation claim the bill will secure the border, decrease illegal immigration, and restore the rule of law to our immigration system, the CBO report demonstrates that the Bush-Kennedy bill will not fulfill these promises.

AFL-CIO Opposes Bush-Kennedy Bill

AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of labor unions and a powerful political force, announced Wednesday that the organization formally opposes the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill (S.1639). At a press conference to announce their position, Ed Sullivan, President of AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department, said that the immigration bill is “dangerously flawed.” He argued, “This legislation won’t work because creating any workable solution to this crisis must first begin with, and remain centered upon, the impact that it will have on American workers. This bill failed that measure from the very start.”

While the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) has advocated for granting amnesty to illegal aliens and promoted chain migration, unions such as AFL-CIO see a real threat to American workers under the Senate bill because temporary foreign workers would for the first time be able to hold non-seasonal jobs (Associated Press). Ana Avendano, an AFL-CIO attorney and director of its immigrant worker program, said that would give employers like Wal-Mart and owners of meatpacking and poultry plants a lower-wage source of year-round workers that could be exploited (Associated Press). Similarly, at the press conference, Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer for AFL-CIO, said the guest-worker program would create a situation “ripe for exploitation” and would increase unemployment among American workers as traditionally permanent jobs are filled with temporary foreign workers. “The bottom line,” he said, “is that this bill is far from the kind of comprehensive immigration reform that would improve the status quo for either U.S.-born or immigrant workers or their families, and, in fact, it is likely to make matters much worse.”

Also participating in the press conference were Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and United Food and Commercial Workers International President, Joseph T. Hansen. Senator Sanders, who has actively opposed the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill, stated that the bill’s guest worker provisions would only succeed in making “a bad situation worse.” Mr. Hansen echoed Sanders’ criticism of the guest-worker program, stating that such programs may create an “underclass of workers.”

Despite the AFL-CIO’s position, some unions have expressed support for the bill. Most notably, among the bill’s supporters are Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE HERE (representing hotel, restaurant, laundry, and textile industries) who both see a recruiting target in those 12 million now-illegal aliens. They also are in favor of keeping temporary foreign worker programs, which are popular with immigrants, as long as the government ensures the workers are not abused. SEIU Vice President President Eliseo Medina said only about half of the foreigners coming to the United States under those conditions would want to stay permanently anyway (Associated Press).