Congressman Luis Gutierrez and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin met with community leaders in Chicago yesterday in order to talk about the hot issue of immigration reform in the United States.
“To think that 11 million are living among us without documentation,” Durbin noted. “We need to do something.” Durbin hosted the meeting along with Congressman Gutierrez, with the lawmakers in the process of starting negotiations with Republicans regarding immigration reform in their respective chambers in Capitol Hill.
“It’s really good to be in Illinois and to know that Illinois, once again, is a driving force in making comprehensive immigration reform happen a reality,” Gutierrez said. Gutierrez has been leading the charge on immigration reform on a national level, while Durbin is one of the eight US senators who have come up with a framework for a proposed law that would offer a pathway to US citizenship for those who are living in the country without any legal documentation.
Durbin says that whatever law gets passed will have to be the result of compromise with those in the Republican Party. “We have to have a bi-partisan bill,” he says. “That means the bill we end up with would not be the bill that Luis and I wrote.” Durbin says that the Democrats will have to agree to Republican demands to secure the border with Mexico and that illegal immigrants should not be allowed to jump in front of those who have legally applied.