Well, well, well, did the obvious facts of the folly of the Senate immigration bill (S. 744) finally get registered at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Probably not fully. And certainly the President’s attitudes or goals were not changed. But the efforts of the under-funded immigration patriots finally changed the game of rush to another Amnesty.

Okay, VDARE.com and all the other important immigration patriot groups such as FAIR, NumbersUSA and CIS can’t take full credit. We know all about the other factors besetting Obama’s second term.

But, together, immigration reform patriots were vital in getting the message to our base—which happens to be the majority of American citizens of all colors, ethnic origins and levels of income who favor less immigration and protection of their citizenship interests over illegal and legal immigrants who have entered the US in huge unneeded numbers for decades.

Before the flaps over Benghazi and the Affordable Care Act fiasco, despite our valiant efforts, it seemed certain that the Gang of Eight which got S. 744 passed in the US Senate, coupled with cheerleading by President Obama, would succeed in ramming another Amnesty down the throats of American citizens.

However, on Wednesday, November 19, on Page 1 of the Wall Street Journal, we are told that

"President Barack Obama said Tuesday he would accept a piecemeal approach to overhauling the immigration system, a move aimed at jump-starting a moribund process that reflects the realities of a divided Congress.

Mr. Obama has long favored the sweeping immigration bill that passed the Senate in June, but the House has made clear it wouldn't consider that measure. In a wide-ranging interview before business executives at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council, the president said he is amenable to House Republicans' taking up elements of the Senate bill, as long as the end result is the same.

"If they want to chop that thing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, I don't care what it looks like," Mr. Obama said. "What we don't want to do is simply carve out one piece of it…but leave behind some of the tougher stuff that still needs to get done."

Many advocates of a broad immigration overhaul have worried that Congress would pass some elements, such as business-backed measures allowing more temporary workers into the country, without setting a path to citizenship for people now in the U.S. illegally, as the Senate bill does. Mr. Obama's statement was his most extensive about accepting a piecemeal approach.

The president said he was "optimistic" that Congress would meet the goal he set of passing an immigration bill by the end of the year.

But just after Mr. Obama spoke, Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, poured cold water on that idea. In his own appearance before The Wall Street Journal CEO Council, Mr. Ryan said there wasn't enough time left to tackle immigration this year."

Obama Backs Piecemeal Immigration Overhaul |President in WSJ CEO Council Interview Also Discusses Iran and Health Law, By Carol E. Lee, November 20, 2013

 Speaker Boehner has already informed us that no House immigration bill would reach a conference with the US Senate on S. 744 and affirmed that the House would be considering the immigration in separate bills.

This again will offer strenuous lobbying opportunities for those wanting more visas for agriculture and high tech workers.

Long-time immigration reform patriot Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) is quoted by the WSJ as  saying

he was skeptical about Mr. Obama's remarks accepting a piecemeal approach. "House members need to be on alert: It's not step-by-step if the individual bills are combined into a comprehensive proposal in a backroom negotiation and delivered to the president's desk," Mr. Sessions said in a statement. "Instead, the House must insist that enforcement is accomplished before advancing any other immigration bill."

Many obvious reasons not to add millions more come from the unemployment situation: reported by the US Government as under 7%, truly is at least double that number when those who have stopped looking are counted. Talk about false advertising!

And perhaps the most sneak attack on our sovereignty comes from the findings in the latest Center for Immigration Studies. Director of Research Steve Camarota reports that

if the Gang of Eight immigration bill (S.744) becomes law, three states: Indiana, Oregon, and Virginia may lose seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020; and five states: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina and Ohio may lose seats by 2030. Immigration has the same redistributive impact on the Electoral College. In some cases a state fails to gain a seat it otherwise would have gained or retains a seat it otherwise would have lost.

A major point that I did not realize:

The government counts all persons, including non-citizens, when apportioning seats. As immigrants tend to concentrate in a few states, this means that S.744’s large increases in legal immigration have implications for political representation. Also, by allowing illegal immigrants to stay, S.744 can be seen as redistributing seats. In 2010 illegal immigrants redistributed four seats.

Shifting the Balance | How the Gang of Eight bill and immigration generally shift seats in the House of Representatives, By Steven A. Camarota,  November 2013 PDF

 Camarota notes:

"Legal immigration already shifts political power by adding more to some states’ populations than to others. The Gang of Eight bill increases immigration so dramatically that by 2020 it will already have begun to reshape the political balance.""

Camarota’s bullet points should S 744 have passed or if its version gets passed next year are breathtakingly ominous.

Among the findings:

• The seven million new residents that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects S.744 will add to the country by 2020 may cause IN, OR, and VA to each have one less seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, while NY will gain an additional seat and California will gain two additional seats.

• The 14.2 million new residents that the CBO projects S.744 will add by 2030 may cause IA, KS, MN, NC, and OH to each have one less one seat, while CA will gain three seats, and NY and FL will each gain a seat.

• This redistribution of seats is not caused by the amnesty provisions of S.744. Those illegal immigrants are already here and most were counted in the last census. Rather, S.744 would redistribute seats by doubling legal immigration, adding millions of additional residents.

• By allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country, S.744 can also be seen as redistributing seats. The inclusion of illegal immigrants in the 2010 Census caused LA, MO, MT, and OH to each lose a seat, while Texas and Florida each gained one seat and California gained two seats.

• The overall impact of immigration is very large. The 22.5 million non-citizens (both legal and illegal) in the country redistributed nine seats in the House of Representatives in 2010. The states of IN, IA, LA, MI, MS, MT, NC, OH, and PA each lost a seat in 2010. FL and NY each gained one additional seat, TX gained two seats, and CA gained five seats.

• The 40 million immigrants (citizen and non-citizen) in the 2010 census redistributed 18 seats. The states of AK, IN, IA, KY, LA, MI, MS, MO, MT, NC, OK, OR, PA, TN, VA, and WI, each lost a seat, while OH lost two seats. New Jersey and WA each gained one seat, FL and TX each gained two seats, NY gained three seats, and CA gained nine seats.

• Of the 18 seats redistributed by the 40 million immigrants in the country in 2010, 16 went to states that voted for President Obama in 2012. Thus, from a partisan perspective, immigration tends to benefit Democrats.

• The redistribution caused by immigration tends to take representation away from states comprised mostly of U.S. citizens and give it to states where a large share of residents are not citizens. In the states that lost seats in 2010, 96 percent of the voting-age population were citizens in contrast to only 86 percent in the states that gained seats.

• In the states that lost seats due to immigration in 2010, the average district had 543,243 voting-age citizens compared to 449,553 in the states that gained a seat. There is a real tension between large-scale immigration and the principle of "one man one vote"."

The strategy of the Open Border Democrats for creating a permanent majority of low-skilled legal and illegal aliens is obvious.

It must be fought tooth and nail in the upcoming Congress.

Donald A. Collins [email him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.