AND BAILED-OUT BANKS ARE GIVEN BACK PERMISSION TO FIRE AMERICANS AND REPLACE WITH FOREIGN WORKERS
House Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid and the Obama White House were absolutely certain about one thing for the House/Senate negotiating committee on the Stimulus Bill: There was to be no special restriction to keep illegal aliens from getting new jobs created by the bill at a cost of $250,000 to $500,000 each.
The Democratic leadership of our federal government made it clear that there has been no change from eight years of a Republican White House that let the Chamber of Commerce call the shots on immigration.
Pelosi, Reid and Obama gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce exactly what it wanted -- freedom for unscruplous businesses to continue to hire illegal aliens at the same rate as in the past, and to use the hundreds of billions of Stimulus dollars to do it.
Rep. Calvert (R-Calif.) was the one who inserted E-Verify language into the Stimulus Bill in the House Appropriations Committee. Tonight, he stated the sad betrayal of the American workers. His words take on a partisan tone. As a studiously non-partisan organization, NumbersUSA is uncomfortable when issues are stated in partisan ways. But in this case, there is no question but that the national Democratic leadership sold out the interests of the American working man and woman.
Tonight, behind closed doors with no input from House Republicans, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid crafted the so-called compromise on the stimulus bill. What we now know is that while billions of American taxpayer dollars are going to be spent, there is no assurance that the jobs created will go to American workers. The two amendments that had been accepted by the House Appropriations Committee were stripped without discussion or debate.
-- Rep. Ken Calvert of California
The House of Representatives had included two provisions in its Stimulus bill to make sure that the huge sums of money would create jobs only for legally authorized workers. One provision reauthorized the current voluntary E-Verify program which expires March 6. The other required local government or business receiving stimulus funds to run their new hires through the electronic 99.5%-accurate E-Verify system. There were no publicly stated objections to this.
But the U.S. Senate repeatedly brushed aside Alabama Sen. Sessions' efforts to introduce the same protections into its Stimulus bill.
When the House and Senate negotiators sat down, the leader of the House, Rep. Pelosi, tossed aside the will of the Members of the House of Representatives and did the bidding of the most unscrupulous businesses of America.
The American people have repeatedly voiced their support for employment verification and yet we find that once again special interests win out. The one candle in the darkness of this disastrous bill was the reauthorization and requirements to use E-Verify. Now all we are left is a bill that places illegal immigrant interests above those of hard working American families and leaves the bill at the foot of future generations.
-- Rep. Calvert
Furthermore, Pelosi, Reid and Obama also demanded the stripping of the one protection that had been included by the Senate.
Sen. Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Grassley of Iowa had gotten unanimous approval in the Senate to include language that bailed-out banks could no longer be allowed to fire American workers and replace them with foreign workers.
Pelosi, Reid and Obama made sure that banks can continue to discriminate against Americans in favor of cheaper more compliant foreign workers.
Friends, this is an injustice that will come to plague the perpetrators as time moves on.
But the extent to which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can continue to call the shots on using illegal foreign workers and importing additional authorized foreign workers will depend on how hard each of you reading this will work to spread this story in every newspaper, talk show and website.
These closed-door affronts to fair-play and compassion were executed because the leaders believed they will get by with it.
.... because they believe the American people are too tired, too dispirited and too baffled by the complexity of the trillions of dollars of bail-outs to hold their leaders accountable.
I hope you will use our free fax-sending system to make your opinions known.
The negotiated Stimulus Bill is expected to come to a vote in the House and Senate this week and then go to Pres. Obama for his signature by next Monday.
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA
P.S. As you write your comments, please try to stay civil. It will be difficult because you will be so angry. But what we all need to hear is quick stories of what you have done to spread this tale of betrayal to others. Let's be inspired to greater action by each other's deeds large and small.