Secure borders first, and restore faith

Secure borders first, and restore faith

The senate has completed its version of Immigration Reform. Now it is up to the House. The Senate version did not go through the orderly and public committee process but was invented by a Gang of Eight. A bill with thousands of pages crafted with no public review reminds me of something else — health care, which is now being delayed as its consequences are coming out.

Remember that Nancy Pelosi, who was speaker in 2010, said that the way to know what was in it was to pass it. This is hardly a vote of confidence.

Much of the publicity has been about its effect on the immigrants themselves — past and future, both legal and illegal. We need to understand how it will play out for current American workers, both skilled and nonskilled, and how it will affect the use of our health care and education systems as well as how it will help employers.

The public needs to have some confidence that government will work for them and not against them. We need to see the process. One aspect which worries people is border security. If we can’t know who is legal and who is illegal, who is entitled to government services and who is not, and whether we can control the number of people entering our force or not, These are major concerns.

I believe Congressman Peter Roskam will put border security first and thus restore confidence in our government. Then we can proceed to other steps.

James Thompson

Crystal Lake