What’s in a name? My last name, Gillmor, has its roots in Scotland. It is a name which means devotee of the Virgin Mary. My wife’s last name, Lako, is of Hungarian ancestry. Her grandparents emigrated from Budapest to the United States around 1910. Like most of our neighbors in the Fifth District, we were born in America, but our ancestors came from abroad.
You may already know that the U.S. Senate considered an immigration reform bill last week. This is a debate which began in the U.S. House last December when my colleagues and I passed a border security measure aimed at curbing illegal immigration. As the Senate started their debate, my office received a flurry of phone calls and emails from the Fifth District, bringing even more attention to an already important issue that deserves thoughtful consideration.
Our country was founded as a nation of immigrants and we benefit from liberties unknown to most other societies. The prosperity enjoyed by our citizens makes us the envy of the world. However, our prosperity also makes us a target and we must balance the needs of those good people wishing to share in the American dream, against the threat of our enemies who would use our generosity to cause us harm. Rest assured, the actions taken in Washington are not meant to end our tradition as a welcoming nation but rather to ensure the safety of all our residents.
The debate over legal and illegal immigration has been complicated by a history of open borders and too few enforcement agents. However, Congress has provided nearly $54 billion since 2004 for border security operations and raised the number of border patrol agents to more than 11,000 nationwide. While we continue to provide the resources necessary to combat illegal immigration, we must now reassess our current system and debate the merits of protecting our borders and managing the illegal immigrants already within our borders.
When the House began this debate, we started by tackling one issue at a time. For me, border protection is the essential first step to the illegal immigration crisis. That is why I was proud to support the House’s bill last December which provided additional Border Patrol agents, the use of widespread state-of-the-art surveillance, greater detention capacity and curbing the business of immigrant smuggling. Once our borders are secure, the legal immigration process will become much more viable and necessary. And any effort to undermine our ability to prosecute and remove those who would break our laws should be rejected.
As this debate continues, I think it is important to maintain our nation as a country which welcomes ‘your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ while remaining vigilant against the enemies of our way of life. Simply put, requiring persons from foreign lands to enter America lawfully is a commonsense and fair approach to immigration reform. That is why our laws make the American dream possible for millions of legal immigrants each year.
