Call To Act on Amendment 604!
The Senate is currently debating the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R. 1105), which the House passed last week. H.R. 1105 is a consolidated version of the nine unfinished appropriations bills from the previous session of congress. Aside from its gargantuan price tag—$410 billion—which represents the largest annual spending increase since the Carter Administration, the omnibus bill does contain one good thing: a temporary, six-month extension of the E-Verify program.
Thanks to hundreds of calls to Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) office Thursday, the Senate postponed its planned cloture vote to proceed to final passage of the Omnibus Appropriations bill (H.R. 1105). This was done after the Democrat leadership realized that it did not have the necessary 60 votes to proceed.
The Senate will now have two more days to debate and make amendments to this pork-filled spending bill. Thankfully, Senator Sessions’ (R-AL) amendment (#604) to reauthorize the E-Verify program for the next five years made it onto the final list of amendments that can be offered to the bill. This means that E-Verify reauthorization will definitely receive a roll call vote, so it is vital that you contact your Senators’ offices and tell them that you expect them to vote YES on AMENDMENT 604!The liberal Senate leadership has objected to full reauthorization of E-Verify four times in the last month.
Here are some quick facts about E-Verify:
* E-Verify is a real-time, web-based verification system run by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.
* E-Verify can determine with great accuracy the authenticity of the personal information and credentials offered by employees and new hires. In most cases, verification occurs almost instantly.
* Approximately 99.4 percent of lawful workers receive immediate positive verification, while the other 0.6 percent of lawful workers receive positive verification after a brief visit to their local Social Security office.
* E-Verify is inexpensive for employers to use, costing between $4 and $20 for each employee screened.
* E-Verify is in wide use. Currently, 1 in 10 new hires in the U.S. economy are screened through the E-Verify system.
Because E-Verify has been proven to successfully verify employees queried through the system within five seconds, opponents of this program, to date, have been unable to find a single instance in which legal, U.S. citizens have lost their jobs due to an E-Verify error.
http://www.votervoice.net/Core.aspx?AID=923&IssueID=16733&atid=13404&siteid=0&App=GAC&type=gac now for information on how to help get this done.
Your Calls on E-Verify working. More Needed Please
From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Friday 6MAR09 9:45 a.m. EST
Discontent stalled Omnibus bill yesterday — another chance to force E-Verify vote today
Thanks to all of you who rose to the occasion and made emergency phone calls to the Senate yesterday. Partly because of that, the Senate could not reach 60 votes late Thursday to shut off debate on the giant Omnibus spending bill.
That means we have another chance to help our Senate allies to force a vote on Sessions amendment 604 to the omnibus (HR 1105) PLEASE PHONE YOUR TWO SENATORS IMMEDIATELY AND URGE THEM TO SUPPORT THE ‘SESSIONS E-VERIFY AMENDMENT.’ The Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121.
The Sessions amendment would authorize E-Verify for another 5 years and give states and businesses the assurance of stability in the program to move aggressively to use E-Verify to keep illegal aliens out of jobs so unemployed Americans can have the jobs. Majority Leader Reid of Nevada, on the other hand, continues to treat E-Verify as if it is on life support.
For the umpteenth time in the last six months, Reid yesterday blocked the Senate from voting on a long-term extension of E-Verify. Reid’s staff — and the staff of a lot of pro-illegal-immigration Senators — are telling their callers that there is no need for an E-Verify vote because the Omnibus already has an E-Verify authorization in it. That is very misleading — the authorization only takes E-Verify to the coming fall. This is what Reid did last fall when E-Verify was scheduled to die in November. When Reid was unable to link a long-term E-Verify with some kind of amnesty or big foreign worker increase, he had E-Verify extended only into this March.
Now, he sees he can’t get an amnesty this spring, either. So, he is extending it only until this fall when all the open-borders groups are planning a giant push for an amnesty. It is time to stop this juvenile politics and show some real concern for the Americans who don’t have jobs because illegal aliens do. YOU MUST CALL NOW TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
To find your Senator, http://www.senate.gov/.
To find your Representative, http://www.house.gov/.
Thank you for taking the time
EAU has no connection with any of the above organizations or people, but urge our friends to aid this important effort.