Immigration

Immigration

We are a nation of immigrants, and it is clear that anyone who wants to come to this nation and properly follow the rules of admission to citizenship or legal status should be welcomed with open arms. The call of freedom is clear from the United States across the world.

But we must not reward those who violate our laws when coming into this country. People who have come to the United States illegally should not be given citizenship in any sort of amnesty proposal.

One of the first steps that must be taken is addressing the issue of border security. Our borders must be made secure by all means at our disposal, including fences and beefed-up Border Patrol operations.

In addition, the Congressman has joined with other members of Congress in the Immigration Reform Caucus, carefully studying what can be done to deal with the immigration problems our country faces. We can no longer wait until things are politically popular before we take action--we must enforce our immigration laws now.

Our legal immigration system is seriously backlogged, and needs to be updated. Some centers processing applications are only now reaching applications that were made in the late 1990s. The failure of our legal immigration system only provides a greater incentive to come into the country illegally. In fact, 40% of the illegal aliens in our country have overstayed visas that were legally granted. The Congressman strongly support efforts to reform our legal immigration system into a system that works.