Border Patrol enforcement loophole closed in U.S. House

NUMBERSUSA, 9/23/2009 - By an unexpected vote of 259-167, H.R. 324 (the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area Act) late this afternoon was amended to ensure that nothing about the designation would affect the ability of the Border Patrol to carry out its enforcement duties. Without that language, there was a huge loophole that very well might have been used to block efforts to stop the movement of illegal aliens across that huge Arizona area. Read more at NumbersUSA...

Republicans voted unanimously 174-0 in favor of the pro-enforcement change. Even the usually-open-borders Republicans felt compelled to vote for it.

But Republicans can't make anything happen on their own. And they almost never persuade the necessary 40-45 Democrats it takes to win on anything the last three years.

But the Republican leadership won today because it rallied behind an immigration-enforcement measure that the public would overwhelmingly support.

This change of language won because your barrage of phone calls yesterday and today caused 85 Democrats to know that their constituents really care about border security, that they are paying attention to even obscure legislative happenings and that they very well might punish them if they continue to vote with the open-borders leanings of their Party leadership.

85 Democrats voted with us.