update on SKIL amendment to defense bill
update on SKIL amendment to defense bill
Date: Monday, September 17, 2007 11:11 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1758 -- 9/17/2007 >>>>>
According to the article below by Jerome Corsi, the SKIL amendment to the
Defense authorization bill (HR 1585) may be dead. It seems as though Cornyn
got some patriotic fervor -- his office claims that they don't want to slow
down 1585 by: "tacking on a lot of extraneous measures to the bill that have
nothing to do with national defense."
So, that begs the question -- do we have to worry about Congress slipping the
SKIL act into HR 1585? The article below is the only information available on
the SKIL amendment at this time, but there are a few reasons why we shouldn't
let our guard down on this one:
1) Just because Cornyn's office told the author of the article that the SKIL
bill will not be advanced doesn't mean that Cornyn won't do it. It's also no
guarantee that another Senator won't offer it as an amendment.
Until the amendment is officially tabled anything could happen.
2) Remember that ImmigrationVoice is staging their protest and lobbying
campaign in Washington DC this week. They will very likely meet with Cornyn or
some of his top staffers, and there can be no doubt that they will try to get
Cornyn to change his mind. Unlike Cornyn's constituency who are routinely
ignored, it wouldn't be surprising if the leaders of ImmigrationVoice get a
personal meeting with Cornyn. Keep in mind that Cornyn co-chairs the Senate
version of the India Caucus, so his sympathies and loyalties are very much in
question.
Unfortunately the DREAM Act is still alive, so all is not well on Capitol
Hill. Keep in touch with the major immigration groups for updates on the DREAM
Act since I will probably not cover it further unless the SKIL bill is
revived. It's worth noting that although Cornyn is backing down on the SKIL
bill he is still refusing to commit to voting against the DREAM amendment.
Perhaps a deal of some type has been negotiated.
Here are some useful links for the latest news on the DREAM Act:
http://www.numbersusa.com/
http://www.steinreport.com/
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http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57672
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Amnesty for illegals back for another try Amendments to defense funding bill
subject of debate in Senate this week
Posted: September 16, 2007
By Jerome R. Corsi
President Bush's comprehensive immigration reform, defeated in June, will make
a second appearance this week when the Senate takes up various pro-amnesty
amendments submitted to the Department of Defense funding bill, H.R. 1585,
which is scheduled for debate.
While not "comprehensive" reform, the latest initiative attempts to pass key
provisions of the earlier immigration measure piece by piece by attaching
amendments to unrelated bills, a process critics characterize as "stealth."
Sen. Dick Durbin
Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has re-introduced another
version of his "Dream Act," this time as an amendment (SA 2237) to the DOD
funding bill.
The Dream Act would grant citizenship status to certain illegal aliens under
16 years of age who are pursuing college degrees and would allow them to
receive in-state college tuition rates on an equal basis with U.S.
citizens.
Steve Elliot, president of Grassfire.org, told WND his group plans to launch
next week a nationwide awareness campaign to voice opposition to the Durbin
amendment.
According to Numbers USA, the Dream Act amendment allows an illegal alien to
remain in the U.S. on a track headed for citizenship, provided:
1. the illegal alien can demonstrate continuous presence in the U.S. for five
years and was not yet 16 years old upon initial entry;
2. the illegal alien is of "good moral character" and is not inadmissible on
criminal grounds or because the illegal alien is a national security risk; an
3. the illegal alien has been admitted to an institution of higher education,
has attained a high school diploma, or has obtained a GED in the U.S.
Critics charge the Dream Act is a free pass to millions of illegal aliens,
especially given the rampant documentation and identity theft fraud
accompanying illegal immigration for decades.
One set of amendments that won't be debated are three filed last spring by
Sen. John Cornyn, R.-Texas. SA 2140, SA 2141, and 2142 would greatly expand H-
1B visas, granting U.S. corporations an increased number of immigrants,
largely from India, to compete on a low-cost basis with U.S.
college-trained graduates with comparable technical skills.
Cornyn co-chairs the U.S.-India Caucus in the Senate along with Sen.
Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
Sen. Cornyn's office assured WND yesterday the senator has no current
intention of offering these amendments at this time to the DOD funding bill
being debated this week.
"It's getting late and it's time to pass the Department of Defense funding
bill," a spokesman for Cornyn's office told WND, "but we don't see the
advantage of tacking on a lot of extraneous measures to the bill that have
nothing to do with national defense."
(Story continues below)
Cornyn's H-1B amendments would have increased by several hundred thousand the
number of technically-trained immigrants allowed to work in the U.S., despite
evidence many H-1B visa workers remain in the U.S. after their visas have
expired.
An article written by globalization-advocates Kenneth Scheve, a political
science professor at Yale, and Matthew Slaughter, an economics professor at
Dartmouth, in the July/August issue of the Council on Foreign Relations
magazine, Foreign Affairs, worries that recently released data will cause a
backlash against "free trade" measures, given the adverse impact on U.S.
earnings since George W. Bush took office as president.
Scheve and Slaughter cite U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics studies
demonstrating 96.6 percent of all U.S. workers -- including college educated
and technically trained-workers -- have lost real wages since 2000.
The only wage earners who have gained real wages since 2000 are a "thriving
elite" of CEOs who head multi-national corporations and the MBAs, Ph.D.s, and
lawyers who advise these multi-nationals, according the Bureau data.
WND reported last week Cornyn's offer of a side-by-side amendment to defeat an
amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to remove funding from the Fiscal Year
2008 Department of Transportation appropriations bill for the department's
trucking demonstration project to allow Mexican trucks on U.S.
highways.
During the debate, Cornyn offered a mistaken argument from the Senate floor
that the U.S. had a "treaty obligation" under the North American Free Trade
Act to allow Mexican trucks into the U.S.
The Senate never passed NAFTA as a treaty. Lacking the two-thirds vote needed
for passage of a treaty in the Senate, President Clinton submitted NAFTA to
Congress as a law.
WND reported the Dorgan amendment passed by a bipartisan vote of 75-23. The
vote originally was 74-24, but Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., later changed her
tally.
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