Numbers USA says its activists have made tens of thousands of calls to lawmakers urging them to defund president Obama’s executive amnesty.
The anti-amnesty group is pushing Congress to use the budget process to block Obama’s recent executive actions on immigration — which included offering legal status and work permits to nearly 5 million illegal immigrants.
According to Numbers USA, over the past few weeks their activists have made at least 100,000 calls to Congress pursuing that defunding.
Numbers USA’s content and activism director Chris Chmielenski explained to Breitbart News that the group knows how many calls its activists have made because the group owns the 800 numbers they are directing people to call.
“We have a couple of different lines we’re using. One is a simple redirect. Someone calls a 1-800 number and it automatically connects them to the Capitol switchboard,” Chmielenski wrote in an email. “We also have another toll-free number we set up that allows [people] to enter their 5-digit zip code which then connects them directly to their Rep’s office. We can track each one of them daily.”
In addition to encouraging their supporters to call their representatives, Numbers USA unveiled a new print ad Monday highlighting the negative aspects of executive amnesty on American employment.
The ad features a long line of people waiting for an interview and declares that the law of supply and demand is “one law the president can’t suspend.”
“The Obama amnesty promises to swell the supply of work permits for foreign citizens — the last thing struggling Americans need,” the ad reads. “Americans are suffering from a giant surplus of workers chasing too few jobs. Real wages are stagnant or declining in many occupations. Income disparity widens. Lower and lower percentages of Americans are in the workforce at all.
“Yet, if Congress doesn’t stop him, Pres. Obama says he will offer millions more work permits to illegal migrants so they can compete directly with Americans for nearly every job in construction, manufacturing, truck-driving, hospitality and other service occupations, with many able to take professional jobs, as well,” it concludes.
A Numbers USA representative said Monday they are planning to run the ad in Roll Call, Politico and The Wall Street Journal.
Despite activists’ efforts, House leadership is expected to unveil its government funding package as early as Monday and it’s unlikely to have the defunding language conservatives had hoped to see.
Instead the package will likely fund most of government for most of next year except for the Department of Homeland Security, which would only be funded through February to let a more GOP-heavy Congress take on the executive actions then.
While there is a group of conservatives who are threatening to oppose the package without that defunding text, House Speaker John Boehner has said he expects the funding measure to receive bipartisan support.