Immigration

Border security must be a precondition to any comprehensive immigration reform.  In order to fix our broken immigration system, we must start by securing the border and doing a better job of tracking guest workers.  If these problems are not corrected first, a future Congress will be forced to deal with the same immigration problems we have today.  Additionally, border security and guest worker tracking can’t just be a promise from the President but must have real “teeth” and credibility.

 

I support enhancing our border security by extending and reinforcing physical barriers along the southern border, augmented with sufficient surveillance assets to alert authorities of illegal entries.  I also support increasing our response capability.  Once the border has been secured, we can begin to discuss meaningful reforms, but it is important that we focus on policies that will actually begin to solve the problem.

 

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 demonstrates that simply giving citizenship to illegal aliens will not slow or stop illegal immigration so long as the border is unsecured and guest workers are not tracked.  In fact, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), the number of illegal aliens living in the United States has risen from about 3.2 million in 1986 to 11.1 million in 2011.  Indeed, the mere discussion of this kind of “reform” only serves as a powerful incentive to accelerate illegal entries.

 

Here is where I stand on several specific issues related to any legislative reform of our immigration laws:

 

·         I will vote "no" on any bill that is not given sufficient time for reading, deliberating, and vetting.  Immigration reform must not be passed in the same secretive, rushed, and frenzied manner as Obamacare.  Members of Congress must not shirk transparent discussions.

 

·         Immigration reform starts with accountable border security that includes regular audits and oversight from Congress.

 

·         We cannot reward people who broke our laws.  The punishment must be proportional to the crime. It must be neither weak nor excessive.

 

·         We must improve the legal immigration system to reflect the economic needs of our nation.  We need additional guest worker visas to fill immediate gaps in our workforce and continue growing our economy.  Portability of guest worker visas could protect employees from exploitation and abuse by employers.

 

·         I support reforming our immigration system to prioritize expedited consideration of high-skilled workers, particularly those with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduate degrees.  Foreign STEM graduates help our economy produce and innovate and they do not compete with lower skilled labor and drive wages down.  We should speed up their naturalization process for STEM graduates with jobs and clean records.