ImmigrationMexican senators to discuss immigration law with Georgia lawmakers

Published 4 November 2011

In an effort to curtail the passage of harsh state immigration laws, a group of Mexican senators announced on Tuesday their plans to meet with lawmakers from several states including Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona; the senators hope to convince state lawmakers that illegal immigrants are generally law-abiding individuals who contribute to the U.S. economy

 

In an effort to curtail the passage of harsh state immigration laws, a group of Mexican senators announced on Tuesday their plans to meet with lawmakers from several states including Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona.

The senators hope to convince state lawmakers that illegal immigrants are generally law-abiding individuals who contribute to the U.S. economy.

At a workshop held by the German Marshall Fund in Washington, D.C., Senator Carlos Jimenez Macias, a member of Mexico’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he and several of his fellow senators would be meeting with Georgia state representative Matt Ramsey, the author of House Bill 87, which aims to curb illegal immigration by preventing undocumented workers’ access to jobs and public benefits.

The bill resulted in sharp criticism from the Mexican ambassador to the United States who condemned an early draft of the bill saying it was “poisoning” the relationship between the two countries.

Senator Macias is personally moved by recent U.S. immigration laws as he illegally entered the U.S. as a teen to live and work in Chicago.

“I know what the illegal immigrants feel here in the United States,” he said.

As of Tuesday, state representative Ramsey said he had not received a request to meet with Macias, but would gladly accept one.

“I would welcome the opportunity to meet and hear their concerns and share with them our concerns that motivated us to draft legislation aimed at addressing the issues posed in Georgia by illegal immigration,” Ramsey said.

Meanwhile Mexican senator Ruben Valazquez Lopez said he did not want to see immigration laws becoming “Mexicanized.”

This is something that affects all the illegals in the United States,” Lopez said. “And they are from many nations. Not all. But certainly many. Our fellow countrymen are part of the total.”