Comprehensive immigration reform

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 12:44 PM
From: "senator@mikulski.senate.gov" <senator@mikulski.senate.gov>

Dear :

Thank you for contacting me about immigration and the current debate about immigration reform. I appreciate hearing from you about this issue.

I absolutely agree with you that our nation's immigration system is broken and must be repaired. I believe that comprehensive immigration reform must protect our borders, protect American jobs and provide a humanitarian solution to the problem of illegal immigration.

We need to do a better job of protecting America's borders. At the same time, we must adopt a sensible and dignified approach to dealing with the illegal immigrants who are currently in the country. It is not realistic to round up and deport the over 12 million illegal immigrants who currently are living in the United States. This would waste resources without solving the problem of illegal immigration. I believe that illegal immigrants will continue to come to the United States as long as there are better jobs here than in their home countries. We need a rational strategy to deal with illegal immigrants who have strong ties to our nation and who prove that they can be contributing members of our society.

We need to keep American farms and factories open and working. That's why I support a guest worker program that will help keep our economy strong. Many companies are fighting to stay in business and a shortage of workers in many industries or geographic areas threatens our nation's economy. Without workers, these factories and farms would be forced to close their doors or move overseas, taking away American jobs and hurting our economy. Companies must prove that they cannot find enough American workers before they can apply for guest workers - and then must pay those guest workers the same wage they would have paid any American.

These protections will make sure that guest workers are treated with dignity and not used as a cheap source of labor.

As Congress continues to work on immigration reform, I will continue to work on finding sensible, bipartisan solutions to fix the immigration system. I appreciate hearing your views on immigration reform and want you to know that they will be useful to me as the Senate continues to debate this issue.


Sincerely,
Barbara A. Mikulski
United States Senator


P.S. If I can be of further assistance in the future,
please visit my website at http://mikulski.senate.gov
or call my Washington D.C. office at 202-224-4654