Issue Position: Immigration

Issue Position

We are, and always will be a nation of immigrants. We must secure our borders, and enforce the laws currently in place concerning immigration. By protecting and securing our borders, we can ensure that we as a nation know who is entering this country. Pew Research estimates the illegal population in the United States to be approximately 11.7 million people. Nearly half of these people arrived here legally on a Visa or other travel documents and never left. Congress has passed on numerous occasions laws requiring an Entry-Exit Tracking System.

My opponent, Mark Sanford, has routinely voted against these measures. We must have a system as many other countries do that allows us to know who is in our country, when people leave, and if they overstay their Visas we need to take immediate action by enforcing our immigration laws.

Further, punishing those who are here illegally is only half of the equation, we must also enforce E-verify (again my opponent voted against this requirement) and ensure that those who are here illegally, either by unlawful entry, or by overstaying their visas cannot be legally hired. If there is no way to earn a living, which is the main reason people come here illegally, there is no incentive to stay. Mark Sanford has consistently voted against holding companies who provide jobs to illegals accountable for their actions. This will never be my policy. Removing the incentive for illegal immigrants to stay in this country is the only true method of ending or limiting illegal immigration.

Once we have accomplished these objectives, we need to reform our immigration process so that those immigrants who like those who have come to this great country over its history can have a streamlined and less bureaucratic method to do so. If you have the needed skills, a clean criminal record, are healthy, want to become an American citizen, learn English and pay taxes, you should have a simplified method of legally entering to this country.

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