Amnesty Won’t Fix Swiss Cheese Borders, Will Trivialize U.S. Laws (Rep. Bill Sali)

When I travel Idaho’s First Congressional District, one comment I always hear is, “Bill, stand firm in your position on immigration. Do not accept amnesty as a solution to the immigration problem.”

I have heard the message of my constituents, and I wholeheartedly agree. Amnesty is the wrong solution. Amnesty is no solution.

Representing Idahoans in Washington, D.C. has strengthened my resolve. Plainly our immigration problems represent another failing of our federal government, which has not done enough to protect our borders. That is precisely the kind of government failure that I came to fight in Washington.

Illegal immigration is just that, illegal — the people who come here illegally are breaking our laws. And we will not continue to be a sovereign, well-ordered society without requiring respect for the rule of law. The law must be respected and obeyed by everyone.

A number of federal agencies are charged with enforcing our immigration, workplace and visa laws. But far too frequently our federal government has only been consistent in its unwillingness to perform that basic and essential function.

As a result, agriculture and our service industries have become dependent on a workforce largely comprised of illegal workers. From that dependence, they urge Congress to act cautiously in reforming our immigration laws. Clearly caution is due to avoid unnecessarily putting the US economy into a tailspin. But that caution cannot mean amnesty and it cannot result in continued violation of the spirit or letter of U.S. law.

I’m sure most illegal immigrants merely want to earn a living and provide for their families. But I worry about the portion who run drugs and even engage in human trafficking (a polite term for slave labor). And others claim to just want work, but are in reality terrorists, “sleepers” who lay low with plans to strike at an opportune moment. No one knows who or where they are because our immigration and security systems are like Swiss cheese, full of gaping holes.

Illegal immigration is a daily threat to your children and mine. American jobs are lost and potentially American lives will also be lost because our borders are porous and our enforcement is so haphazard.

Will our borders miraculously be secured by granting amnesty to the millions of people who willfully disregarded the laws of our nation? Will we be safer? Of course not.

Amnesty is brutally unfair to the many millions who have entered the United States legally. A naturalization ceremony is the official ceremony where the people who have taken the legal path to citizenship become Americans, with the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as the rest of us. They feel welcomed — and they should.

How can we possibly justify trivializing the legal path to citizenship by telling lawbreakers that their efforts are on par with those who stood in line and entered the United States with permission? What message does that send to people who navigate the difficult process for immigration and naturalization, and now are ready to take an oath of citizenship? Most troubling, what message does it send to the thousands of brave Americans who fought and died to make being a citizen of the U.S. truly meaningful?

We need to secure our borders. We need to fund and build the fence that the Congress approved last year. We need to insist that government agencies enforce our laws. And those agencies must provide a workable process for every employer to ensure their workers are legal with sanctions for those who knowingly employ illegals anyway.

The ultimate question is this: If we allow anyone to violate U.S. law to enter our country, how can we demand that they — or anyone else — obey all of our other laws once they are here?

Unless we stop illegal immigration, we will travel that road to general disregard for all law, a road upon which freedom becomes merely license and then anarchy. That’s unacceptable for Idaho and for America.

Editor’s note: Rep. Sali became the 100th member of the Immigration Reform Caucus in the 110th Congress when he and Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) joined May 1.