Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez spoke at a luncheon Thursday afternoon at Hotel Arista in Naperville to discuss U.S. immigration policy.
Gutierrez’ timely presentation, hosted by the DuPage Business Council, provided an overview of the U.S. immigration policy as it’s developed since the early 1960s. The 59-year-old who was born in Cuba served from 2005-2009 during the Bush Administration. “I feel like I’ve been an immigrant all my life,” he said.
As a young child, Gutierrez and his family fled to Miami after his father was imprisoned for failing to turn over his pineapple plantation to the Castro regime. After becoming an American citizen, Gutierrez immigrated to Mexico with his family where he worked for the Kellogg cereal empire, beginning as a delivery driver and climbing the ranks to CEO in the late 1990s. He is one of a handful of Latinos to become CEO of a Fortune 500 Company.
Gutierrez chronicled his experiences, insights and applications to entrepreneurship and the free-enterprise system, hallmarks of the Republican party.
He also expressed the challenge of addressing the 11 million undocumented Americans who contribute to the American workforce, describing reforms as an economic tool with three main questions to address: How to control borders? What to do with 11 million undocumented Americans? What’s the new legal system? Gutierrez considers the third question to be the most important part of any new immigration reform policy. The policy must get new legalization right for all concerned the first time without turning it into a political issue, he said.
“We must support immigration reform… The message must not be about Hispanics, Russians or Asians. We must promote that we want everyone to succeed,” he said.
Gutierrez described the path to citizenship, a process that could take 13-15 years, as not as important to most immigrants as the job opportunities and quality of life that attracts them to America.
To prove his point, Gutierrez explained that only 41 percent who were given amnesty under the Reagan administration took the path to citizenship. The majority “came with a dream to accomplish something they couldn’t get back home—and to chase the American dream.”
He added that the reason the United States, unlike Canada and Australia, does not have a good system of legalization is “because the unions are dead set against immigration.”
During the lively Q & A of the town hall format of the meeting, members of the audience proposed more solutions than questions. One individual suggested several options for changing the culture of assimilation, including the need for immigrants to learn English, even though English is not the official language of the United States.
According to Naperville resident and moderator Matt Gambs, a healthy business community and exchange of ideas are essential to the American dream.
“Our organization is all about keeping our members, mostly small business owners, informed on important and timely topics by bringing in guest speakers,” Gambs said after the presentation. “Comprehensive immigration reform is one of those issues in the news today.”
Gambs added his view that the core foundations of a healthy business environment include adherence to free market principles; fair laws equally applied and enforced; a highly trained, diverse and educated work force; solid civil infrastructure; and fair and limited taxation that reward individual incentive, innovative entrepreneurism and hard work.
“We’re all products of immigration,” said Gambs. “So this topic is important and timely.”
Note also that Gutierrez has been at the forefront of comprehensive immigration reform since 2005. He recently left Citigroup to chair the newly formed super PAC, Republicans for Immigration Reform, aimed to create a pathway to legalization for millions of illegal workers, students and children.
Its mission states: The mission of Republicans for Immigration Reform is to provide political support for Republican candidates that advance common-sense solutions to address the nation’s broken immigration system. We must address these issues through comprehensive legislation that recognizes U.S. borders, Rule of Law, dignity of individuals, and policies that address the needs of our economy in the 21st century.
