Stop Senator Bryd's ammendment to S.1932

Have you contacted your Senator on this amendment?


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Registered Users (C)
Here is what i received from AILA just now.
I have sent faxes to my senators. Please do your part in stopping this amendment.

I have also attached a sample letter which you can modify and fax to your senator(s).

PLEASE CALL or FAX ASAP

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Restrictionists are trying to hijack the debate on immigration and YOU CAN STOP THEM!

Senator Byrd intends to offer an amendment tomorrow (11/2/05) to remove the H-1B and immigrant visa retrogression provisions passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee from the Budget Reconciliation Package.



AILA MEMBERS and ADVOCATES SHOULD CALL YOUR SENATORS -- AND HAVE YOUR CLIENTS CALL -- TO URGE A NO vote ON THE BYRD AMENDMENT IMMEDIATELY!!!
DO NOT LET THE RESTRICTIONISTS CONTROL THIS DEBATE!


CALL THE CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD: 202-224-3121
OR GET DIRECT LINES BY CLICKING HERE: http://capwiz.com/aila2/home/


Your phone call is critical to perserving the integrity of this debate about H-1B and Greencard Relief.

As always, thank you for your support.

Sample Message:
"I am a concerned constituent calling to urge Senator ( name ) to vote against an amendment expected to be offered today to the Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005 by Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV). This amendment reverses action taken by the Senate Judiciary Committee to increase revenue by recapturing authorized, but never used, visa numbers for foreign workers with key skills in jobs for which U.S. workers are not available.

Sen. Byrd's amendment raises the revenue that would be lost by adopting the ill-advised House Judiciary Committee proposal to raise the fees on L-1 intra-company transferees to $1,500 per visa, which would discourage overseas companies from opening plants in the U.S. and would encourage countries to retaliate against U.S. companies seeking to transfer U.S. managers to oversee their international operations.

Please vote no when this amendment comes up for consideration. If not, the Senate will lose the opportunity to raise revenue by allowing the use of visas that were authorized by Congress, but never used due to administrative delays."

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do Not Let The Restrictionists Control This Debate!

Everyone This is very urgent. Please please call the Senator and tell them to oppose the amendment propose by Byrd. Please note that there is no time to email. Best way to get in touch is by fax or by calling them.directly.

CALL THE CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD: 202-224-3121
OR GET DIRECT LINES BY CLICKING HERE: http://capwiz.com/aila2/home/

Your phone call is critical to perserving the integrity of this debate about H-1B and Greencard Relief. So please flood the capitol hill with your phone call.
 
Don't sit and read messages- this is the time for action. Contact Your US Senator!!

Send this letter to your Senators Immediately!! I sent it earlier today, you should do now...
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Say NO to Senator Byrd’s Amendment to S.1932 (section 8001)

This amendment reverses action already taken by the Senate Judiciary Committee to increase revenue by recapturing authorized, but never used, visa numbers for foreign workers with key skills in jobs for which U.S. workers are not available. This is a very simplistic, but myopic and ill-advised step!!

Please vote NO when this amendment comes up for consideration. If not, the Senate will lose the opportunity to raise significant revenue by allowing the use of visas that were authorized by Congress, but never used due to administrative delays.

If relief is not provided to skilled, legal immigrants like myself, our future will continue to be plagued by uncertainty for many years to come.

Such delays are causing great hardship to tax- paying, law-abiding, skilled immigrants many of whom have US Citizen children, both large and small American employers and entrepreneurs, and a potential loss of talent and billions of dollars of revenues to American businesses and the economy at large.

There are estimated to be about 300,000-400,000 people affected by the current EB (Employment Based) backlog. These people contribute an estimated $15-20 billion to the US economy (atleast $5 billion in direct taxes plus other direct/indirect receipts).
 
Please send letters/faxes

I sent the below message to Senator Byrd. This is his web-address: http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_email.html

I do not know if it helps to send the same over and over by many people to him - but may be you can modify it little bit and send to your state senators and house reps.

This thing is like and India Vs Pak cricket match - tension down to the wire. Hope we will make it even by a narrow margin. Lets do our part by contacting the senators once again. Concentrate on the EB relief provisions alone in your letters/faxes.


Honorable Senator Byrd,

I read with great anxiety that you are preparing to propose an amendment to drop the EB immigration relief proposals from the Budget reconciliation bill being discussed in the Senate currently. I am writing this to request you to please reconsider that decision.

There are many misconceptions about the immigration relief provisions attached to the budgetary proposal, and the major fear seems to be that this proposal will lead to Americans lose more jobs. However, these relief provisions have nothing in them, which will lose American jobs. On the other hand, in the abscence of these relief proposals, the American IT industry stands to lose many of its most experienced and hardworking people and thereby lose tremendous momentum. These provisions give relief to the guest workers WHO ARE ALREADY HERE LEGALLY AND LABOR CERTIFIED FOR IMMIGRATION - that is they are doing the jobs for which the employers cannot find American workers after advertising many times over in the media with competitive salary and benefits (thus certified by the labor department after close scrutiny). These people are working in the US for past several years, and they are still stuck midway in the process because of a broken immigration system. Several highly qualified professionals are waiting in the line for more than 5 or 6 years already and these relief proposals are needed very much right now. These are the people supporting the lifeline of the American IT industry - the highly qualified, tax paying, law abiding professionals who are an asset to the organizations they serve. American IT industry needs the service of these people. It is an undeniable fact that for the speciality IT jobs like large database security designing, enterprise ERP implementation, enterprise datawarehousing etc., IT companies are struggling to find qualified workers, even with the guest worker program. It will be a tremendous loss to the American Industry if we lose qualified professionals who are supporting the lifeline of the industry and paying huge amounts of taxes for several years already, because the senate and the house is not able to recognize the genuine need for relief at this critical juncture.

Once again I would like to submit to you that the EB immigration relief provisions have nothing in them that will lose American jobs. Anything which states otherwise is a false propaganda. The immigration system is badly broken, those who dis-regard the law should be punished, and the illegal immigration should be curbed urgently. But it is un-American to punish the LEGAL immigrant community AGAIN AND AGAIN for the mistakes of a failed burocracy and a broken system. American Industry needs the services of the highly skilled workers who are ALREADY HERE LEGALLY and standing in line for immigration for several years already. Without immediate relief, many of them will go out of status and forced to leave the country and it will be a blow to the American industry as a whole. Hence, kindly reconsider your decision to propose the amendment to drop these proposals from the budgetory bill.

I once again request to you to please support the Employment Based Immigration relief provisions included in the budgetory proposals.


Thanking you,

Sincerely,
 
My letter to the Senator...

Honorable Senator,

I am not your constituent, but still I would like to write to you about an issue which is very close to my heart, and which affects my dream of settling down in the United States of America. I just heard that you will be proposing an amendment to the Budget reconciliation bill ( to remove the visa retrogression provisions proposed in the bill. I would like to request you to reconsider your opposition and the proposal to table the amendment.

This bill provides relief to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have been waiting patiently for the last few years to become permanent residents of this country. However owing to post September 11th changes made to the working of USCIS, there were significant delays in approval of Permanent residency, due to which many of the visas which were otherwise usable were not used up for the people waiting in the queue. This bill (S.1932 (section 8001)) attempts to recapture those visas numbers which were not used, even though there were significant demand for those visas.

There is a popular misconception that the proposal contained within the bill tries to open a backdoor for unlimited immigration. This is not so, the gist of the bill tries to recapture the visa numbers which were not utilized -- mainly due to increased workload for USCIS which resulted in a massive backlog. Also this bill does not deny an American worker his or her job because these visas have strict background in making sure that no American worker looses his or her job.

The other misconception is that the bill will allow for people to apply for and gain permanent residency if the numbers are not yet available. FAIR is trying to promote that this is a large loophole allowing for unlimited immigration. There is nothing in the bill which allows this. The bill just allows for people to apply for, but not gain permanent residency. This is very good in terms of nation's security because application to permanent residency initiates a detailed security background check on the applicant. In these times of heightened security alert this is a very prudent step as it allows for better enforcement of immigration laws and security.

Third misconception is that this will burden the USCIS/DHS with further workload, which while debatable, is not entirely true. Availability of visa numbers will allow the USCIS to close on many cases which will otherwise generate a lot of repeat work (in terms of giving work authorization document, approving travel permits), thus straining the already stretched resources of USCIS/DHS - the resource which can be better utilised in enforcement of border security.

Last but not the least, we are here legally and contribute a lot to this economy, however we can be contributing a lot more to the economy if our permanent residency comes through as we will be able to buy homes, start businesses and generate more revenue and jobs. At the least, American industry needs the services of the highly skilled workers who are already here and standing in line for immigration for several years already, this is evidenced by support of such organizations like competeamerica.org and AILA.org. Without immediate relief, many of them will go out of status and forced to leave the country and it will be a blow to the American industry as a whole. Hence, kindly reconsider your decision to propose the amendment to drop these proposals from the budgetary bill.

America is the land of opportunity, please dont deny us that opportunity.

Sincerely,
Sd/-

PPS: I used the ending from the previous post :) sorry!
 
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I just called my senators from GA.

Chambliss's office said he hasn't made up his mind yet, but took down my details and opinion to say NO to Byrd's amendment

Isakson's office was more courteous, and said he supports the bill, and would say NO to Byrd's amendment.

Both are republicans, in case you are wondering.
 
I did my share

Hi,
I called Senator Hagel's office and let them know that I support the bill and oppose Seantor byrd's ammendment. I also called Senator Bidens office and let them know as well. Republicans seem to be in favor and democrats opposesimply without any resolution to the problem.
 
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