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A brand-new Georgia billboard proclaiming South Carolina’s alleged affinity for illegal aliens is raising eyebrows this week.

The sign, posted in Canton, Ga., declares: “South Carolina welcomes the undocumented. Sen. Lindsey Graham says his state has a labor shortage and wants more immigrants. For job tips, call his office at (864) 646-4090. Located in Pendleton, S.C. Only 2 hours from Atlanta!”

Sen. Graham, R-S.C., sits on a bipartisan committee that just passed a sweeping immigration-reform bill.

“These people must have been off the planet for the last five years,” said D.A. King, an immigration activist with the Dustin Inman Society who paid for the billboard. “We don’t need more workers. We need more jobs.”

King blasted the immigration bill, claiming illegal aliens will have an easier time getting jobs in the U.S., while making it more difficult for American citizens to find or hold onto employment.

“I think unemployed Georgians are already kicking and screaming,” King told WGCL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta.

“If you want an answer, go to the unemployment office and ask someone in line if they think adding 20 million more workers to the American workforce in the next several years is a good idea.”

The CBS station went to the Cobb-Cherokee Department of Labor office, and found that most people did not wish to comment on immigration, but did say they were desperate for work.

“With less income coming in, I have two kids to take care of, a husband and a household so it’ll be a struggle,” said Tangela Roach, who recently lost the second part-time job she had.

“I’m very concerned,” said Brooke Daugherty. “I’m a single parent. I’m very concerned to find a job immediately.”

King is hoping his billboard brings national attention to immigration reform and the negative impact it could have.

“Most of us want our borders enforced, our laws enforced and our jobs back,” King said.

King’s activist group was named for Dustin Inman, a 16-year-old American boy killed by an illegal alien in a traffic crash on Father’s Day weekend in 2000.

Dustin was on his way to a weekend of fishing in the North Georgia mountains with his parents.

Despite being in the U.S. illegally, the driver of the car that killed Dustin, Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez, was able to obtain a valid North Carolina driver’s license using his Mexican birth certificate and a Mexican Matricula Consular ID card.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/billboard-has-eye-popping-message-on-illegals/#97j4e6KUmqKZxMxD.99 Read more about Eye-popping billboard zings famous Republican

Read more about Boxer Amendment: Redirect Border Funds for Immigrant Health Care

The Senate’s “Gang of Eight” immigration bill took a significant step forward Tuesday afternoon, when the Senate voted 82-15 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed on the measure. The Senate will now begin formal debate on the bill, with the goal of holding a final vote on the compromise measure by the July 4th holiday.

Despite weeks of heated debate over the bill, just 15 senators voted against moving it forward: John Barrasso (R-WY), John Boozman (R-AR), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jim Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Tim Scott (R-SC), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), and David Vitter (R-LA). All 15 are Republicans.

Despite the overwhelming support for the motion to proceed, the ultimate fate of the compromise bill is still very much in question. Many of the Republicans who voted in favor of the motion to proceed may ultimately oppose the bill after it undergoes a contentious amendment process. Specifically, Senator John Cornyn’s (R-TX) amendment to add strict border security requirements before any immigrants can obtain permanent residence — a proposal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has called a “poison pill” — and Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) amendment to add language protecting same-sex couples could divide the fragile coalition that supports the bill. Leahy has not yet announced whether he will offer the amendment, which he declined to offer in committee in the face of Republican threats that it would scuttle the deal.

As Jamelle Bouie points out in The Plum Line, Democratic senators such as Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Max Baucus (D-MT), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) could ultimately oppose the bill as well.

Senate leaders from both parties hailed Tuesday’s vote as a critical step toward fixing the nation’s broken immigration system.

“There are 11 million reasons to pass common-sense immigration reform that mends our broken system — 11 million stories of heartbreak and suffering that should motivate Congress to act,” Senator Reid said ahead of the vote. “The bipartisan proposal before the Senate takes important steps to strengthen border security. It also makes crucial improvements to our broken legal immigration system.”

Similarly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — who has threatened that the bill would need “major changes” to ultimately win his vote — voted to invoke cloture, arguing on the floor that the Senate “deserves a chance to debate it” and “the opportunity to amend it.”

Even if the bill does survive the Senate, there are no guarantees that it will advance through the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. House Speaker John Boehner expressed his concerns with the “Gang of Eight” compromise during a Tuesday morning interview with ABC News, telling host George Stephanopoulos that “especially in the area of border security, and internal enforcement of this system, I’m concerned that it doesn’t go far enough.”

“I would expect that a House bill will be to the right of where the Senate is,” Boehner added.

Were the House to pass the Senate bill, it would almost certainly be with a minority of the Republican House majority — in violation of the so-called “Hastert Rule.”

Earlier Tuesday, President Barack Obama had pushed the Senate to move forward with the bill. The president stressed that the compromise bill contains several elements for which Republicans have pushed — such as $6.5 billion in new border security, and harsher penalties for businesses that employ undocumented workers — and insisted that “no one is going to get everything they want. Not Democrats. Not Republicans. Not me.” Read more about Immigration Reform Clears First Senate Hurdle In 82-15 Vote

The Gang of Eight has stated, “this legislation does not significantly increase long-term, annual migration to the United States” and has indicated the legislation shift the United States from low-skill and chain migration to high-skill merit-based. Conspicuously, however, they have refused to provide an estimate of future flow. A conservative analysis of the legislation, with low-range estimates for the new and expanded visa programs, reveals that the proposal would dramatically increase the future flow of low-skill workers and chain migration and provide legal status and work authorization to 30 million immigrants over the next 10 years—who will then be able to bring in family members, initiating a wave of non-merit-based chain migration that will greatly increase low-skilled immigration.

Here is a shorthand way of looking at the explosive growth in the number of people who will be granted work authorization and permanent residency over the next 10 years, largely on a non-merit based track:

· An estimated 2.5 million DREAM beneficiaries of any age (including those no longer living in the country) will be eligible for citizenship in five years.

· DREAM beneficiaries will be able to bring in an unlimited number of parents, spouses, and children (not subject to any cap) and those spouses,  children, and parents will get permanent legal status in five years and be eligible for citizenship in 10.

· An estimated 800,000 illegal agricultural workers will become legal permanent residents (green card holders) in five years and will then be eligible to bring in an unlimited number of spouses and children.

· An estimated 8 million additional illegal immigrants, including recent arrivals and millions of visa overstays, will receive legal status and work authorization. These 8 million will be able to bring in their relatives as soon as 10 years from now. Those relatives, over time, will be able to bring in spouses, children, and parents.

· An estimated 4.5 million aliens awaiting employment and family-based visas under current cap limitations will be cleared in less than 10 years, not subject to the family-based annual cap (thus freeing up room for more family-based migration that is subject to the annual cap).

The bill increases the level of immigration through current and new visa systems. Here are just some examples of how the bill increases legal immigration through visas:

· The bill creates a new merit based visa, which allows for up to 250,000 visas annually. If a little over half of the visas are issued over a 10-year period, the increase in the number of immigrants would be 1,250,000.

· The bill creates a new guest worker program (W-1) for low-skilled workers with a cap of 200,000 visas annually. If a little over a half of the guest workers visas available are issued over a 10-year period, the increase in the number of immigrants would be 1,000,000.

· The bill creates a new nonimmigrant agricultural workers program (W-3 & W-4 visa) which allows up to 112,333 annually. If half of the visas are issued over a 10-year period, the increase in the number of nonimmigrants would be 561,665.

· The bill exempts Priority Workers (EB-1 under current law), STEM graduates, and spouses and children of LPRs from the employment-based visa caps. By taking the average number of immigrants in the two exempt categories over the past 10 years, the exemption will account for an additional 762,000 immigrants over 10 years.

· The bill increases the H-1B visa cap up to 180,000 with a floor of 110,000. If half of the H-1B visas are issued over a 10-year period, the increase in the number of immigrants would be 1,450,000.

· The bill leaves current employment visa caps unchanged and moderately decreases family caps, allowing 301,000 visas a year with some exemptions, but allows for unused visas from 1992 through 2013 to be recaptured. Over a 10-year period, the number of legal immigrants would be 3,879,094.

The total number of immigrants obtaining legal status from the programs listed above is 24,702,759 over a 10-year period. That number does not include other immigrant and nonimmigrant visa programs in the bill (e.g. refugee and asylum seekers, W-1 visas, W-2 visas, W-3 visas, W-4 visas), nor does it include student visas who are now allowed dual intent.

The Gang of Eight’s bill will drastically increase low-skill chain migration. Some of the chain categories are subject to an annual family-based visa cap of 161,000, including adult unmarried sons and daughters of citizens or LPRs, and married sons and daughters (under the age of 31) of U.S. citizens. However, the bill completely exempts the largest categories of chain migrants from the family- and employment-based visa caps, including spouses and children of LPRs or citizens and parents of citizens. The following illustrates how the exempt chain migration categories will dramatically increase the future flow by millions of immigrants over the next 10 years:

• An estimate 2–3 million DREAM beneficiaries are eligible for legal permanent residency and citizenship after just 5 years. After receiving LPR status, the DREAMers may bring a spouse and child through the bill’s exempt chain category and, once granted citizenship, can bring their parents as well (not subject to cap). Assuming 1 million DREAMers bring any combination of two people, the future flow of immigrants would increase by over 2 million. This does not include other chain migrants that a DREAMer may petition under the caps, including adult unmarried sons and daughters, and married sons and daughters. Subsequently, the chain migrants will have the same opportunity to petition for their relatives in the same manner as the DREAMers.

In sum, over the first decade, the total number granted will be well over 32 million (not taking into account chain migration from increased legal flow). Adding in all the various categories of nonimmigrant work visas, and the number climbs to more than 57 million. Further, because approximately 7 million illegal immigrants are on a 13-year track to citizenship, there will be a second wave of chain migration initiated just outside the 10-year window (substantially increasing the net low-skill immigration).
  Read more about Analysis of Future Flow In Gang of Eight Plan: More than 30 Million Immigrants Granted Legal Status In 10 Years, With The Ability To Bring Their Relatives