Randy Pullen On the Immigration Reform Bill

The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2007

On behalf of the more than one million registered Arizona Republicans who care very deeply about this state and have a tremendous love for our great nation, I am very disappointed in this new legislation about to be introduced in the U.S. Senate next week. The bill would allow all 12 million plus illegal aliens to remain in this country indefinitely and provides them, as well as their immediate families, a path to citizenship. This is amnesty, as they will be working and living in the United States, while those who have applied legally for Visas are still awaiting entry.

Furthermore, the bill does not require certification that our borders are secure. Instead, enforcement “triggers” such as building 370 miles of fence along a 2,000-mile border and increasing our Border Agents from 14,000 to 18,000 are to be certified. There are no requirements that theses triggers be shown to be effective before the granting of sweeping amnesty. If Senator Kennedy and his Democratic friends were serious about securing the border, they would have agreed to real standards for border security in the bill.

Over the past several days, the Arizona Republican Party has had hundreds of calls and e-mails from activists, voters of all partisan persuasion, precinct committeemen and women, and even chairs of legislative districts and county committees questioning the judgment of our elected officials in Washington, D.C.

We here in Arizona are living each day on the front lines of the immigration debate because it’s our children who are subjected to the drugs first coming across the border and appearing in our schools. It’s our hospitals here in Arizona that treat the millions who have crossed the desert to get here illegally and our Arizona taxpayers who must foot the bill. It’s our Arizona communities that have become the battlegrounds for the thousands of gang members who traffic in people, drugs, weapons and stolen vehicles.

To Congress we say: This proposed law with 790 pages of new bureaucracy and window-dressing will not solve the immigration problem. This legislation is an over complicated answer to problems it’ll never adequately address and will do more to encourage illegal immigration than to discourage it. Instead, prove your commitment to securing our borders by finishing the fence, adding border security technology, letting Border Patrol do their jobs and authorizing more National Guard to assist the Border Patrol.

RANDY