Seal the borders before any reforms

There are three things that make a country: language, culture and, most of all, "borders." We are now involved in a great struggle to once and for all solve our nagging illegal immigration problem. This problem has many sides to it, but the most important ones are border security and workplace enforcement. Without these components any immigration plan is doomed to failure, as has happened in 1986.

Now, with an additional 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants here, are we going to continue this farce, or are we going to fix this problem once and for all? Or, are we going to be doing this same exercise again in four or five years? I hope not.

Let's be real about this problem. If the government wanted to solve the immigration situation, they could have done it with the laws they have now. But, no, they let the problem grow to the point of creating this cry for immigration reform. We as Americans are being duped and taken advantage of.

Let's seal the border with a double fence first, wait a year, then deal with the illegal people who are here. But, no, they want the so-called reforms first, then maybe the fence. You see, they are afraid of the fence; they want to repeat this scenario over and over again to our cultural demise, not leaving time for assimilation.

We as citizens have the right to control our borders and to know who is coming into our country. We are supposed to be a country of laws, not men.

Michael L. Madia

Schaumburg