Border Security Victory

According to Numbers USA, the amnesty amendment to the war funding bill has been stripped.

CongressDaily AM today reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stripped the AgJOBS amnesty from the Iraq supplemental spending bill (H.R. 2642) last night as well as the increase in visas for employment-based permanent workers. Provisions to increase H-2B visas for unskilled seasonal workers remain in the bill. Please call your Senators to tell them to remove the H-2B visa increases as well, and to keep the AgJOBS amnesty and employment-based permanent worker increases off the bill.

There is a lot to analyze here. First, as you can see, there is still yet another provision open borders provision that has yet to be stripped.

What is impressive is the coordinated email campaign that the likes of Numbers USA, Townhall, GOP USA, the Minuteman, and Human Events, have created to wage a twenty first century grass roots campaign to mobilize anti illegal immigration forces. I received emails from each of the groups in the last twenty four hours regarding this matter.

Second, the forces that continue to push pro open borders legislation are constantly thwarted by this grass roots effort. Yet, there maybe a method to their so called madness. With each piece of pro open borders legislation, these groups mobilize into a full effort of emails, phone calls, and faxes. Each piece of legislation is thwarted.

Yet, what this has done is drained valuable resources from their main priority, the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act is the only enforcement only bill currently being considered. Nancy Pelosi refuses to move the bill to the floor unless it includes blanket amnesty. The sponsor, Heath Shuler, is trying to mobilize an effort for something called a discharge petition. If he is able to get a majority of Representatives to sign onto this discharge petition, Shuler can force the SAVE Act onto the floor without the approval of Pelosi.

Shuler is being supported in this effort by the same groups that mobilize against all of these open borders efforts. Since I first noticed their grass roots campaign they have secured about ten new members for the discharge petition. Shuler is now within thirty signatures. A successful discharge petition is nearly unheard of, and yet the SAVE Act is a unique bill. It enjoys bi partisan support from an eclectic group of politicians, activists, and special interests. Everyone from Tom Tancredo to John Murtha has backed the bill.

By placing unnecessary open borders amendments into war funding bill, grass roots groups are forced to limit their energies on the SAVE Act and focus those same energies onto fighting these pieces of legislation. Whether or not this is in fact the machiavellian plans of the open borders folks is something only they can say, however the effect is the same regardless.