Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Eliseo Medina visited the University on Wednesday to address the SEIU’s controversial position on immigration. The event was co-sponsored by the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations.

The SEIU is a union organization with over 1.8 million members from the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada who are dedicated to uniting and improving the conditions of workers. Medina is the first Mexican American to be elected to a high-ranking post at the SEIU and has made it his mission to lead the unionization of immigrants in the United States.

Medina proposed more constructive and inclusive reforms for the nation’s immigration policies to repair a “broken and deeply flawed immigration system.”

“Everyone should have an opportunity to aspire for the American dream,” Medina said.

The future of illegal immigration policies according to President Bush’s plan includes increasing border security by doubling funding from $4.6 billion to $10.4 billion. The plan also includes increasing the number of Border Patrol agents by 63 percent to 15,000 agents, and constructing a 700-mile fence that will cost 10 to 15 million dollars per mile to build.

Bush’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act has also funded 6,700 more detention beds to detain illegal immigrants.

Medina proposes a new solution for improving illegal immigration policies that is potentially more proactive to both the United States economy and the immigrants. He suggests allowing illegal immigrants to legalize their status by coming forward and undergoing an extensive background check without being deported. Immigrants would only pay a fine for breaking the immigration law.

Medina’s case for changing Bush’s current and proposed plan is that money that is being spent on improving border security could be spent elsewhere on more productive causes.

Medina also combated current ideas that immigrants don’t pay taxes and take jobs away from Americans.

“(Illegal immigrants) pay taxes that we do on food and gas,” he said.

He said that the illegal immigrants are not the cause of decreasing jobs in the United States and that illegal immigrants do not serve their own interests by outsourcing or downsizing jobs.

“They need jobs just to live, so they take whatever wages or conditions,” Medina said while discussing why illegal immigrants take less desirable jobs in the United States. “If they complain, they get deported.”

Only 5,000 visas are afforded to immigrants per year. Medina said this is not enough for the 40,000 immigrants that want to work and make a new life in the United States every year.

He supports immigrants’ access to full labor rights upon admission so they can work and provide for themselves and families.

“They are already helping our economy grow,” said Medina. “It’s important to take them out of that (illegal immigrant) status. … Immigrants come to this country knowing they have to work hard.”