DREAM Act Amnesty Passed by House

Houses last hurrah for open borders not too impressive Texas Insider Report: Washington D.C. For two years we have heard that if House Speaker Pelosi allowed a vote on the DREAM Act amnesty that it would sail through her 60 majority chamber. But last night while pulling out all the emotional stops the House Democratic leadership lost 38 of its Members (who voted NO) and managed to narrowly pass the DREAM Act amnesty with only 52 of the vote.  Of course that was enough.  The House only needs 50 plus one vote to pass anything. But the Senate Thursday will have to have 60 of its members approve the amnesty for the President to sign it into law. We dont believe there are 60 Senators willing to do this during this time of sustained high unemployment. Thus the House vote tonight (Wednesday) represented the high-water mark -- and ultimately the failed end -- of a 10-year campaign to pass this loophole-filled fraud-prone overly-broad amnesty that lacks any enforcement against future illegal immigration.  The reason Pelosi wouldnt allow a vote on the DREAM amnesty earlier was the fear that it would take care of the most attractive and heart-tugging examples of illegal aliens and make it impossible to pass a blanket amnesty for all illegal aliens later.  It was always assumed that with the Democrats controlling 60 of the Senate and 60 of the House at the beginning of this Congress that the DREAM amnesty would have little trouble passing both chambers. Yet tonight the bill really just scraped through and we hopefully will see it buried for many years to come Thursday in the Senate. Tonight marks the first time in 10 years that the DREAM amnesty has actually passed a chamber of Congress. That makes this a high-water mark. But if DREAM cant get through all of Congress with the bills most passionate backers leading a Party that has one of the largest majorities in history -- while virtually every national elite has been supporting it and while foundations have poured tens of millions of dollars into passing it -- what kind of chance does it have for passage in the future? And if the easiest most attractive amnesty that the open-borders forces could devise cant get through THIS Congress when can any amnesty get through any Congress in the future? Maybe several amazing deals will be struck before tomorrow morning and the Senate will shock me and disappoint the nation by passing the DREAM amnesty.  But my guess is that the victorious smile Speaker Pelosi wore as she grabbed the gavel and declared an amnesty victory tonight amid great applause was the bittersweet smile of a victory that will mean nothing.  At least I hope so.  20 House Members Failed To Vote The usual 218 vote majority was not needed tonight because 20 Representatives failed to show up to vote: DEMOCRATS: Berry (Ark.) Cohen (Tenn.) Delahunt (Mass.) Kilpatrick (Mich.) Marshall (Ga.) Mollohan (W.Va.) Schiff (Calif.) and Wu (Oregon) REPUBLICANS: Bilbray (Calif.) Blunt (Mo.) Buyer (Ind.) Fallin (Okla.) Gingrey (Ga.) Granger (Texas) Griffith (Ala.) Marchant (Texas) McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) Radanovich (Calif.) and Stutzman (Ind.) It is doubtful that these absences affected the final outcome. 8 REPUBLICANS Broke With Their Party Leadership And Voted FOR The Amnesty Our chances to defeat the amnesty were sunk with the defection of these 8 Republicans in favor of amnesty:

1. DELAWARE - Castle
2. FLORIDA - L. Diaz-Balart
3. FLORIDA - M. Diaz-Balart
4. FLORIDA - Ros-Lehtinen
5. HAWAII - Djou
6. LOUISIANA - Cao
7. MICHIGAN - Ehlers
8. SOUTH CAROLINA - Inglis

38 DEMOCRATS Broke With Their Party Leadership And Voted AGAINST Amnesty We almost did as well with Democrats as I had hoped. I had always said we needed at least 42 Democrats to vote for unemployed Americans and against the amnesty although I felt 45 probably was needed. Because of so many Republican defections we actually needed more. These were both re-elected Democrats and Democrats who were defeated all of whom went against incredibly emotional appeals from their Partys top leaders in floor speeches tonight. It is quite rare for a Speaker of the House to go to the floor and make a speech. But Speaker Pelosi made it clear that passing this amnesty is one of the dearest things to her heart in an impassioned speech that seemed to laud as a hero every citizen of another country who is courageous enough to break our immigration laws. Nonetheless these Democrats OPPOSED the amnesty:

1. ALABAMA - Barrow
2. ALABAMA - Bright
3. ARKANSAS - Ross
4. ILLINOIS - Costello
5. ILLINOIS - Lipinski
6. INDIANA - Donnelly
7. INDIANA - Ellsworth
8. INDIANA - Visclosky
9. KENTUCKY - Chandler
10. MARYLAND - Kratovil
11. MICHIGAN - Stupak
12. MINNESOTA - Peterson
13. MISSISSIPPI - Childers
14. MISSISSIPPI - Taylor
15. NEW YORK - Arcuri
16. NEW YORK - Higgins
17. NEW YORK - Owens
18. NORTH CAROLINA - Kissell
19. NORTH CAROLINA - McIntyre
20. NORTH CAROLINA - Shuler
21. OHIO - Boccieri
22. OHIO - Kaptur
23. OHIO - Space
24. OHIO - Wilson
25. OKLAHOMA - Boren
26. PENNSYLVANIA - Altmire
27. PENNSYLVANIA - Carney
28. PENNYSLVANIA - Critz
29. PENNSYLVANIA - Dahlkemper
30. PENNSYLVANIA - Holden
31. PENNSYLVANIA - Kanjorski
32. PENNSYLVANIA - P. Murphy
33. UTAH - Matheson
34. VIRGINIA - Boucher
35. VIRGINIA - Nye
36. WASHINGTON - Baird
37. WEST VIRGINIA - Rahall

No matter what you may think about the rest of the politics of these Members I hope those of you in their states will give them major pats on the back for taking this stand. Congressional Switchboard:  202-224-3121 Notice how they are from all over the country. Special thanks to all of you Pennsylvanians who outdid yourself with 7 Democrats voting NO. And how often do you New Yorkers have something to be proud about when it comes to immigration voting? But you did well tonight. So did those of you from Indiana Ohio and North Carolina. Im especially proud of all the Democrats who lost their seats in the November elections and still voted against their Party leaders and against the amnesty tonight. Most Senate voicemail boxes are full. So you wont be able to leave messages. You need to start calling after 7 a.m. EST Thursday for a last chance to affect the outcome. SEE YOU ON THE LIVE WEBCAST THURSDAY MORNING as we watch and comment on the Senate amnesty vote. Watch at: www.NumbersUSA.tv ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA Views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect official policies of NumbersUSA. NumbersUSAs blogs are copyrighted and may be republished or reposted only if they are copied in their entirety including this paragraph and provide proper credit to NumbersUSA. NumbersUSA bears no responsibility for where our blogs may be republished or reposted.