Tuesday, March 11, 2008

House Republicans Move Forward on Shuler-Tancredo Bill

Today the Republican leadership filed a "discharge petition" on the SAVE Act (Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act) and have begun gathering the needed signatures to force the bill to the House floor for a vote.

A "discharge petition" is a special procedural motion that would allow the sponsors of the Shuler-Tancredo bill to take it straight to the floor of the House without having to go through the full committee process and then force a vote. 218 House members must sign the petition to allow it to go to the floor …the bill currently has 139 sponsors, including a group of 48 vulnerable freshman and conservative blue-dog Democrats.

The chief co-sponsors of the SAVE Act (HR. 4088) are Rep. Heath Shuler (D-North Carolina), Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-California), and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) who has made a career, including a failed presidential candidacy on anti-immigrant rhetoric. Rep. Bilbray leads the House Immigration Reform Caucus and is a former lobbyist of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organization recognized as a hate group by mainstream civil rights and research organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. For a list of co-sponsors on the SAVE Act, go to: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR04088:

About the SAVE Act:
  • It would require more than six million employers to verify the work status of more than 130 million workers within four years, regardless of their status, using a federal database already known to have over 17 million errors.

    It would result in 12.7 million US citizens being forced to have an already overtaxed bureaucracy correct their records within a ten day window, or face mandatory termination of employment.

  • It would make it easier for the government to put religious and humanitarian workers behind bars for so-called "alien smuggling" - - mandating penalties up to 5 years imprisonment

  • It would require all local law enforcement agencies to become immigration agents, requiring them to do immigration checks at every traffic stop and domestic dispute…. A policy that has been opposed by leading law enforcement organizations.


Facing the specter of having to run on their accomplishments this coming November, nervous Republicans are scrambling for an issue to distract the electorate from their dismal records. The SAVE Act is just a return to the short-sighted Sensenbrenner Bill (HR 4437) and represents more of the failure in leadership that has marked Republican efforts on this issue. We need leaders who will tackle tough issues and be willing to do the hard work necessary to solve complicated problem intelligently - not offer false promises, empty rhetoric, and cynical election-year ploys at the expense of immigrant families .

Please call your representative at 202-225-3121 now and urge them to oppose the SAVE Act.

Write Your Representative and tell them not to sign on to support the SAVE Act

DEMOCRATS SPONSORING SAVE ACT

(Ala.) - Rep. Cramer
(Ala.) - Rep. Davis
(Ark.) - Rep. Berry
(Ark.) - Rep. Ross
(Calif.) - Rep. McNerny
(Colo.) - Rep. Perlmutter
(Colo.) - Rep. Udall
(Fla.) - Rep. Boyd
(Fla.) - Rick Keller
(Fla.) - Rep. Klein
(Ga.) - Rep. Barrow
(Ga.) - Rep. Bishop
(Ga.) - Rep. Marshall
(Ill.) - Rep. Bean
(Ind.) - Rep. Donnelly
(Ind.) - Rep. Ellsworth
(Ind.) - Rep. Hill
(Ind.) - Rep. Visclosky
(Iowa) - Rep. Boswell
(Kan.) - Rep. Boyda
(La.) - Rep. Melancon
(Mich.) - Rep. Stupak
(Miss.) - Rep. Taylor
(N.H.) - Rep. Hodes
(N.Y.) - Rep. Arcuri
(N.Y.) - Rep. Gillibrand
(N.Y.) - Rep. Higgins
(N.C.) - Rep. McIntyre
(N.C.) - Rep. Shuler *
(Ohio) - Rep. Ryan
(Ohio) - Rep. Space
(Okla.) - Rep. Boren
(Pa.) - Rep. Altmire
(Pa.) - Rep. Carney
(Pa.) - Rep. Holden
(Pa.) - Rep. Kanjorski
(Pa.) - Rep. Murphy
(Pa.) - Rep. Murtha
(Pa.) - Rep. Sestak
(Tenn.) - Steve Cohen
(Tenn.) - Rep. Cooper
(Tenn.) - Rep. Davis
(Tenn.) - Rep. Gordon
(Tenn.) - Rep. Tanner
(Texas) - Rep. Lampson
(Texas) - Rep. Rodriguez
(Utah) - Rep. Matheson
(Va.) - Rep. Boucher
(Wash.) - Rep. Baird
(Wis.) - Rep. Kagen

* Primary Sponsor

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Save Act will discourage ILLEGAL immigration into the U.S. Any such law is in line with the laws of most other nations around the world that have tight restrictions on allowing non-citizens to obtain jobs without a work visa or permit. Why should the U.S. be any different?

Employers must be held accountable as to who they employ. Many of those in the U.S. illegally obtain jobs with counterfeit, fraudulent or stolen documentation, which by anyones standards is against the law. Do not blame law abiding American citizens for any hardships of those that chose to violate our immigration laws and now try to convince everyone that they are being victimized.

Anonymous said...

Fuck the Democrats. Those who sposnsor this abortion of a bill and now those who are getting on with the discharge.

Did you read this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031303674.html

Mariachi Mama

Anonymous said...

MM, Quite graphic lingo to express yourself. Step back for a second and study the labor laws of most industralized countries all over the world. The U.S. is not doing anything that is out of line with many other countries. Why must unemployed American citizens be denied a job just because the position is occupied by someone here illegally? Like I said, counterfeit federal documents are against the law, stolen documents are against the law and documents used in a fraudulent fashion is against the law. And last, but not least, entering the U.S. without proper documentation is against the law. So, how many laws must a person break before they are held accountable? It only takes one violation the way any law abiding person would see it.

RonF said...

I am in overall agreement with the 1st and 3rd postings. However, from the act itself regarding the discovery of name and address/SSN mismatches:

"Such notification shall instruct employers to notify listed employees that they have 10 business days to correct the mismatch with the Social Security Administration or the employer will be required to terminate their employment."

There should be some onus on the SSA to deal with these kinds of things in a timely fashion. Maybe this should be "they have 10 business days to file a request to correct the mismatch with the Social Security Administration ..." and then give the SSA (and the employee) 30 days to correct this or else the dispute is decided in favor of the employee.