Immigration

WASHINGTON -- Moderate Democrats working to gather support from Republicans for comprehensive immigration reform sent an ultimatum Friday to Speaker John Boehner: introduce a bill by Sept. 30 or they'll introduce their own.

"[W]e are frustrated that there was not a bipartisan immigration reform bill introduced prior to the August recess," reads the letter from 39 members of the New Democrat Coalition, a 53-member group, including co-chairmen Reps. Joaquín Castro (D-Texas) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

Nihal Advani came to the U.S. from India to play college tennis and got a job at Microsoft after graduation, but couldn't get a work visa and had to move to Canada. Craig Ulliot is worried that he'll lose a promising young employee if she can't get an H-1B visa to stay in the U.S. and keep working at his startup.

Congressman Bill Foster (IL-11) meet today with a diverse group of business and community leaders from the 11^th district to discuss comprehensive immigration reform, including members from the Indian, Polish, African American and Hispanic Communities. Over the past few months, the Congressman has reached out to local leaders in order to form an immigration advisory committee that has helped him evaluate the potential impact of comprehensive immigration reform efforts on the 11^th district.

Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center thanks those members of the U.S. House of Representatives who spoke out this week to end the wasteful and harmful immigration detention bed quota. While an amendment co-sponsored by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) did not garner enough votes to eliminate the mandate from the House's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill, it is clear that the movement to reform the inhumane immigration detention system is gaining momentum on both sides of the political aisle.

On Friday, May 24, US Senator Dick Durbin and US Congressman Bill Foster joined with Cholly Smith of the US Chamber of Commerce and Mark Segal, the Chicagoland Chamber's Public Policy Committee Chairman, on a panel hosted by the Chamber's Employment Law Forum for a discussion on the need to pass federal comprehensive immigration reform.

Joliet City Councilman Jim McFarland wants to hear firsthand – and publicly – what Corrections Corp. of America plans to do if it builds an immigration detention center in Joliet.

McFarland, who called for a public meeting to learn about what has been discussed privately with city officials, was one of several community leaders at a news conference Thursday to speak against a controversial proposal to build a for-profit immigrant detention center in Joliet.

Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin Congressman Bill Foster met with current and former students at Aurora University who have benefitted from the Obama Administration's recent immigration directive. The program, which is modeled after Durbin's DREAM Act, allows young immigrants brought to the United States as children a chance to apply for a two-year renewable work permit and exemption from deportation.

From a news release: