Hold Their Feet To The Fire 2009 ~ By Roger Hedgecock

From WorldNetDaily

By Roger Hedgecock Posted: September 21, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Last week, 46 radio talk hosts and hundreds of their listeners descended on Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress against illegal-alien amnesty. The event is known as "Hold Their Feet To The Fire," or HTFTTF, and was sponsored by FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. I started HTFTTF in January 1995, leading about 200 listeners (who paid their own way) to lobby Newt Gingrich and the new Republican House majority to not forget the promises of the "Contract With America," to fulfill their pledges to balance the budget, reform welfare, etc. Speaker Gingrich was so impressed by the sight of ordinary Americans paying their own way to come to D.C. in the dead of winter and asking nothing except that politicians keep their promises, that he allowed me to set up and broadcast from the basement of the Capitol building itself – the first radio talk host to do so. And for awhile the budget was balanced, and welfare was reformed. This decade, the focus of HTFTTF shifted to illegal immigration. In 2007, the McCain-Kennedy immigration "reform" bill had the backing of the Democrats, the Republicans, and President Bush who told us "I'll see you at the bill signing." The advocates of open borders and illegal amnesty had the backing of the chamber of commerce and the AFLCIO, both political parties, the media and the president – and they lost. The amnesty bill was defeated because the American people would not tolerate rewarding law breakers, would not insult the efforts of legal immigrants who played by the rules and knew that illegals in this country increasingly compete for jobs with citizens and legal immigrants, driving down wages and the standard of living for every working American. Half-hearted promises of border control or workplace enforcement would not obscure the fact that McCain-Kennedy was an immediate amnesty grant (the "Z" visa) with a devastating negative impact on jobs, schools, prisons and the social safety net. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]