I recently met with Congressman Peter J. Roskum (R) representing the Sixth Congressional District of Illinois to discuss his stand on the much debated Comprehensive Immigration Reforms Bill.
He was very humble and friendly during the entire course of the meeting and he himself came to the Lobby to invite me into the conference room where we spoke for 30 minutes and he also came to lobby to pay sendoff. He shared some of his experiences with immigrants and how passionate he was with their success in their fields. He shared his relationship with his childhood friend Ramesh who lived with Congressman's parents when he was pursuing his Masters in UIC and how hard he worked to earn his Green Card and how successful Ramesh is after starting his own business several decades ago.
While we both do not agree on few of the points we discussed and Obama's rush to get things done using his Executive powers; most of the Congressman's view of points makes sense. Here are some of the highlights from his argument why GOP is blocking Immigration Bill in the House of Representatives:
1. As a Chief Deputy Whip in the House, he was very critical of Obama and Senate version of the Comprehensive Immigration Reforms bill
2. The Congressman agreed with my argument that passing a meaningful immigration reforms bill will open up the economy for many entrepreneurial minds and ultimately boosts the economy.
3. The Senate version of the bill gives 11 million illegal immigrants Green Cards/Citizenship despite many legal, tax paying and law abiding immigrants waiting for their turn for the past decade or so4. The Southern border of the US is becoming a dangerous place and Southern border must be secured and proper measures are taken to keep illegal immigrants away.
5. There should be a Probationary period for those 11 million undocumented immigrants before they are granted Green Card/Citizenship
6. Rep. Roskum argued that everyone who completes their PhD in US should get their Degrees with a Green Card stapled to it that way US can stop those highly educated people leaving the country after their PhD.
7. Rep Roskum agreed with me that passing the CIR will greatly influence the further growth of our economy and he completed agreed with the study that says every immigrant will add at least five American jobs
8. Congressman agreed that there should be a fair, transparent system that encourages high skilled immigrants from across the World to make United States their homes and contribute to the prosperity of this country
9. He agreed that no skilled immigrant should be punished for being legal, paying taxes and obeying all the laws by closing the immigration system to them
10. He quoted Prime Minister Modi to support his/GOP case on the delay
in passing the CIR. He did mentioned that Modi will made a good Prime Minister and he expressed his confidence that Modi will transform India as a Developed Nation. He built his case by continuing to say Modi cannot alone transform India in a day/week/month/year it takes several years before India is completely transformed. Similarly, Immigration Reform will take some time but GOP is committed to bring fairness to the Immigration system.
He finally concluded saying He and his Party wants to wait until the high tide of excitement and anxiety about the immigration reforms come down and then they wants to have a peaceful bipartisan dialog before House takes up and finally pass the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill.
Nothing much was accomplished from this meeting but I had an opportunity to meet with a US lawmaker and present my case and millions of others' cases to let the Congress, especially Republicans know why a meaningful, commonsense Immigration Reforms is good for the economy, people, skilled immigrants of the United States!
