This commentary is by Terry Breen of Charlotte, a retired high-tech industry executive.
For many years, our politicians have dodged the important question of how best to manage our borders and advance our immigration policies. Instead of debating these important questions, we have fallen back to name-calling, including labeling conservatives as racists because they don’t want open borders and labeling liberals as socialists because they want more relaxed borders.
This is a ridiculous political game that does nothing to address the problem. The vast majority of Americans want something that lies between these two extremes.
Let’s start with the first part of the problem: border control. I think most of us agree that sovereign nations need a secure border, with the U.S. at the top of the list, given we are the country most immigrants desire. I trust there are smarter people than me who can determine how to apply the right approach/technology to achieve a secure border (wall, drones, electronic monitor, etc.). We can implement civilized ways to control our borders so that we, as a sovereign state, can control who comes into our country for a visit, for immigration, and for asylum, as well as ensure our nation’s security.
Once we have control over our borders, we can decide what are our immigration “dials” and how the “dials” should be set. We should research, debate, and vote (via our congressional delegates) on the rules and processes of U.S. immigration, including how our immigration supports our culture, how immigration supports our desire to be a good neighbor to other nations, what is the application process, how are applications vetted, how many immigrants do we want per year, what is our policy on specific types of asylum, how do we handle work visas without harming U.S. workers, etc.
We should include in our processes the mechanisms to allow our immigration policies to adjust over time to reflect evolving American attitudes, changing needs as a country, and/or handling critical geopolitical issues.
To show that a conservative person like me can find ways to work with more liberal-minded people on the subject of immigration, I would support the following once our new immigration policy is in place:
1) I’d accept all undocumented people currently in the country (who are without any violent criminal background) as citizens. I would delay their right to vote for 10 years to take politics out of this action.
2) I’d increase our legal immigration rate to show good faith in our new process, to add younger people to our demographics, and to assist true asylum seekers.
3) I’d incent all 50 states to step up and welcome “their fair share” of immigrants and asylum seekers so that we do not disproportionately settle immigrants in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico.
I think it’s time we ask Congress to take up the question of secure borders and advanced immigration policies. No more name-calling and no more kicking the can down the road. This is a serious and worthy question to be worked on as a nation.
