Gilchrest Misleads Voters on Immigration While Wasting Taxpayer Money

The full color franked mail Gilchrest’s congressional office sent out at taxpayer expense is misleading the public on Gilchrest’s record on illegal immigration. “The taxpayers are funding Gilchrest’s misleading statements concerning his record on illegal immigration,” said Chris Meekins, Political Director for the campaign.

The truth is Gilchrest supports AMNESTY for illegal immigrants (co-sponsor of H.R. 371, 2007). “Unlike the incumbent, I will never support any form of amnesty,” Harris added.

Gilchrest’s real record on illegal immigration:

• H.R.1885
  5/21/2001 Vote 127: Gilchrest voted to allow illegal immigrants who overstayed their visas to pay a $1,000 fine and stay in the U.S. while they completed their residency application.
• H.AMDT 655 7/8/2004 Vote 341: Gilchrest voted against an amendment that would have increased funding for enforcing current federal laws against sanctuary policies for illegal aliens.
• H.AMDT 745 9/9/2004 Voted 439: Gilchrest voted against the amendment
  that would have barred illegal immigrants working in the U.S. from receiving Social Security benefits.
• H.AMDT 138 5/17/2005 Vote 177: Gilchrest voted against the amendment that
  would have denied federal homeland security funding to state and local governments who refuse to share information with federal immigration authorities.

Not only is Gilchrest misleading the public about his record, but he is also using taxpayer dollars to do it. “Apparently Gilchrest has so little respect for taxpayer dollars, that he votes for billions of dollars in wasteful spending and then uses taxpayer dollars to fund campaign activities,” Meekins said.

“It is one thing to send a letter to a constituent who asks about a specific issue, it is a completely different thing to mislead them,” said Chris Meekins, Political Director for Harris for Congress.

Using taxpayer funded franked mail for his own political benefit is nothing new for the office of Wayne Gilchrest. In the first quarter of 2007, Gilchrest’s office was in the top 10% of all members of congress in his abuse of franked mail.

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