FAIR Alert: Critical Vote on Amnesty Bill TODAY!

There is no time to waste!TODAY at 5:30 p.m. EDT, the U.S. Senate will vote on a critical amendment to the Gang of Eight Amnesty bill authored by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND). FAIR is urging all of our members, supporters, and friends to call their Senators all day Monday to make sure your voice is heard. You can find the phone number for your U.S. Senator here at FAIR’s website. Tell them to vote NO on the Corker-Hoeven amendment and S.744! Written with approval of the Gang of Eight, they filed their 1,200 page re-write of the amnesty bill (S.744) late Friday afternoon, giving their fellow Senators only one weekend to sift through the bill and search for all the new provisions. Senator Corker justified the rush by stating his colleagues in the Senate had 75 hours over the weekend  to read and analyze the new version.Senators Corker and Hoeven claim their amendment will significantly improve the border security provisions in the bill. But don’t be fooled! The Corker-Hoeven amendment contains only illusory promises of border security attached to other measures that actually make the bill worse! Consider the reality of Corker-Hoeven:

• Purports to add 19,200 Border Patrol agents to the U.S.-Mexico border. However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has 8 years to add these agents (until 2021) — well after illegal aliens receive amnesty — and paying for them requires the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Purports to require that 700 miles of fencing be built along the U.S.-Mexico border, but does not strike the existing language in the bill that expressly states the Secretary of Homeland Security is not obligated to build a single mile of fencing.
• Purports to require DHS to implement billions of dollars in specific technology and resources for each border sector along the U.S.-Mexico border, but then provides the Secretary may re-allocate any of the resources required or substitute the technologies listed with any other technologies.
• Significantly restricts the ability of Border Patrol agents to conduct transportation searches along the Northern border by limiting the area in which agents are authorized conduct such searches.
• Codifies the Obama Administration’s prosecutorial discretion policy regarding visa-overstayers, by authorizes the Secretary to administratively close visa-overstay cases instead of initiating deportation proceedings.
• Bars the government from prosecuting amnestied aliens for felony-level Social Security crimes.
• Creates a rolling amnesty, by allowing aliens who have been in the U.S. with work authorization for 10 years, and then overstay their visas, to be eligible for merit-based visas.

You can learn more by reading FAIR’s summary of just some of the changes made by the Corker-Hoeven Amendment.Call your Senators NOW and tell them not to be fooled by the Corker-Hoeven amendment! Urge them to vote NO on the Corker-Hoeven amendment and S.744! Tell them:

• You will not accept a repeat of the 1986 amnesty when Congress promised better enforcement, but never kept those promises, and
• You demand real border security AND interior enforcement before any other changes are made to our immigration system.