In the News
U.S. Congressmen Bill Foster (D, IL-11) and Ted Deutch (D, FL-21) want immigrants protected from fraudulent and unethical legal representation.
Tatiana Jimenez left her native Guatemala seven years ago to escape an abusive relationship and begin a new life in America.
But she endured a different kind of abuse after she arrived in Washington, D.C., and sought legal help on her immigration status. With little knowledge of the system, she turned to an unscrupulous lawyer who had her sign a contract to pay $2,800 and charged her hundreds of dollars for immigration documents the federal government provides for free.
The problem is all too common in Texas and especially the Rio Grande Valley — so much so that the state attorney general's office has a special office to deal with it, and periodically conducts special sweeps to arrest those who fraudulently promise to process immigrants' documents.
Fraudulent "notarios" - a term coming from the Spanish term for public notaries, and referring to non-lawyer immigration consultants - have long scammed immigrants in need of legal help. Federal authorities have rarely attended to the problem, and there is no federal statue which addresses the practice of immigration law by those unauthorized to do so. Now, with the introduction of a House bill sponsored by Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), bills in both chambers of Congress will seek to crack down on scammers amid bigger bills which would reform the nation's immigration system.
A Hispanic group from Catholic Diocese of Joliet visited U.S. Rep. Bill Foster (D-Naperville) on Friday to drop off petitions urging the passage of immigration reform at the federal level and to remind the congressman about why that legislation is so desperately needed.
WASHINGTON — The only retired general in Congress, House Democrat Bill Enyart of Belleville, who attended a classified briefing Sunday on potential military strikes against Syria, said the challenge facing the U.S. was to choose "the least bad of our alternatives."
"There are no good answers," said Enyart, a retired two-star general who sent thousands of Illinoisans into the fight in Afghanistan in 2008-09 as head of the Illinois National Guard.
Remember those kids you went to school with who were so smart you knew they'd wind up being scientists or engineers?
Two of them are now representing the Joliet area in Congress. U.S. Reps. Bill Foster (D-11th) and Dan Lipinski (D-3rd) have impressive science pedigrees.
The 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech was celebrated Wednesday afternoon at Aurora University by having students and guests experience the famous address in a way that mirrored how it was delivered five decades ago.
One Illinois Democrat says immigration reform isn't just a moral issue-it's good for business. U.S. Rep. Bill Foster (D-Naperville) is appealing to business leaders to get behind comprehensive immigration reform, claiming passing the current Senate bill would increase the gross domestic product and reduce the national debt. He says the piecemeal approach favored by House Republicans, on the other hand, would hurt the economy.
Illinois business representatives were able to schmooze Wednesday with scientists and researchers from Argonne and Fermi national laboratories during a first-of-its-kind small-business fair.
The event was held at Argonne, near Lemont, and featured three congressmen: Dan Lipinski, D-3rd, and Bill Foster, D-11th, — each of whom represents a portion of Argonne — and Randy Hultgren, R-14th, who represents Fermilab near Batavia.