CHICAGO - GOP Congressman Paul Ryan (WI-1) and Democrat Congressman Luis Gutierrez (IL-4) - normally from extreme opposite sides of the political spectrum - came together in Chicago Monday to announce an legislative effort to reform the nation's immigration laws.
U.S. Reps. Paul Ryan (WI) and Luis Gutierrez (IL) announce cooperation on immigration reform (Photo by Chris Robling)
While saying he wanted to "stay off Boston" Ryan said, “We have a broken immigration system, and if anything, what we see in Boston is that we have to fix and modernize our immigration system for lots of reasons. National security reasons, economic security reasons. For all those reasons we need to fix our broken immigration system.”
Politico reports Ryan came to the City Club of Chicago luncheon armed with five principles he is seeking as part of immigration reform: a pathway to legalization, an expedited pathway for children, securing borders, enforcement of laws and allowing legal immigration.
Gutierrez told a Christian Science Monitor breakfast recently that he's "been careful to adhere to the first rule of working in a bipartisan secret group: Don't talk about the secret group."
While the lawmaker of Puerto Rican descent often clashes with Republicans on a wide variety of issues, he said he is willing to reach out when he feels his opponents want to compromise to get something done.
"If you have an opportunity to solve a problem," he says, "you're an idiot if you don't change the manner in which you treat your opposition when your opposition has said, 'You know what? I want to work this out.' "
Chris Robling, who was in attendance at the City Club of Chicago luncheon, said Gutierrez and Ryan listed House Democrats and Republicans that have worked through the immigration reform proposal together, and they have no bill number yet, but it's coming.
