Foster Letter Follow-up

I received an e-mail from Congressman Bill Foster's communications director yesterday. Basically she told me that the letter I received (qouted yesterday 7/30) was a form letter sent to all participants at the "Corner" meeting and that it was not meant to address the issue, but rather to quickly acknowledge the meeting.


She also indicated there would be a more detailed letter coming soon.


Well...it came today via e-mail and I share it with you in its entirety:


Dear Mr. Heaton:
Thank you for contacting me about illegal immigration. I am honored to represent you, and I appreciate your active participation in our legislative process. Your involvement makes democracy work better by helping me more effectively represent you and Illinois' Fourteenth District.

My position on illegal immigration is clear. I believe that we must secure our nation's borders and act to improve workplace enforcement while addressing the underlying causes of illegal immigration. The most effective step in controlling illegal immigration will involve a national worker database through which employers will quickly and reliably verify the eligibility of workers. When such a system is in place, employers will no longer have an excuse for hiring illegal immigrants.

I recently visited the U.S.-Mexico border, and while progress has been made to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, much is left to do. Indeed, rather than dealing with one aspect of our immigration crisis, it may be best to incorporate such measures into broader immigration reform that deals with all aspects of this problem: secure borders, rapid and reliable workplace enforcement, background checks, and realistic quotas-specifically for high-skilled workers-that meet the needs of our businesses and communities.

As Congress continues to address and work to alleviate the growing issues surrounding immigration, I will continue to support common-sense reforms to our immigration system that do not reward those who break the law. Should further legislation related to illegal immigration come before me in the House of Representatives for a vote, I will be sure to keep your views in mind.

Hearing from the families I serve is vital to doing my job right. Thanks again for taking the time to share your concerns and I hope you keep in touch with me on this or any other issue you feel important. To stay informed of my work, or to sign up for my electronic newsletters, please visit my Web site at http://foster.house.gov/. Please contact me if I can help you in the future.

Sincerely,
Bill Foster
MEMBER OF CONGRESS
BF/mp
(end of Foster's letter)


I am impressed with the letter but a few things are missing, or he has changed his stance.


His letter seems to focus on high-skilled worker quotas but is silent about the traditional guest worker program which (as proposed a year ago) would have opened the door to millions more unskilled workers. We need to pin that down. A few thousand additional PhDs is quite different from hundreds of thousands of high school dropouts.


Foster has also dropped the employer-paid immigrant worker fee idea. I'm not sure if that is off the table now or he simply didn't mention it.


And he did say he has no plans to reward those who broke the law.


I'm sure his letter was not intended to be an all-inclusive plan but rather a summary of his views.


We will clarify with his office if some of the more distasteful (to us) parts of his plan have been left out of the letter.

Some answers can be found at his campaign website here:
http://www.foster08.com/2007/12/uncontrolled_im.html

But we are willing to allow someone to change his mind, as long as he sticks to it after November 4th!

Once again, we would like some more details on this issue of vital importance to Elginites.