You Decide

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Border Security

We face a crisis on our southern border.
• Over 330 million non-citizens—tourists, students, workers, and others—cross the border each year.
• We cannot track them all nearly as well as we need to.
• Over 10 million people now live in the United States without proper legal documentation.
• The unprecedented flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border endangers national security and challenges our compassion, but also presents an opportunity to define the future of our country.

Our insecure borders threaten America’s national security.
• Most migrants simply seek better lives for their families.
• But there are those who cross our borders to deal drugs and engage in human trafficking. Some may have links to terrorist groups.
• Without a certain way of keeping track of visitors, we cannot be safe from terrorists.

Stemming the flow of illegal immigration requires better enforcement.
• Unless we have an effective means to enforce immigration laws, reform will do little good.
• If potential border violators know that we will catch them, we can stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
• We must work to improve the personnel, the technology, and the infrastructure which defends our frontiers.
-- We should add 2,000 more patrol agents, investigators, and detention/deportation officers to give us a total of nearly 41,000 people devoted to protecting our border.
-- We need to equip these men and women with better technology: they need more aircraft, better systems for tracking visitors, and more cameras.
-- Finally, we need to build more fences, walls and barriers to stop people from entering the country illegally and more detention beds to hold those who have criminal records.

Immigration

Immigrants have enriched our culture and we should welcome them. But we also must ensure they absorb America’s values and unique culture.
• We are a nation of immigrants.
• Neither skin color, nor background, nor the language one speaks at home determines a person’s status as an American.
• Instead, our nation is founded on ideals.
• Our adherence to those ideals will define the future of our nation.
• We should respect immigrants’ language of origin, but also ensure they have the opportunity to learn English.
• They should come to preserve and protect the values all Americans hold dear.
• A heritage of liberty is the most valuable gift any nation can bestow upon its new arrivals.

The crisis on our borders challenges our sense of compassion.
• Last year, several hundred people died in the deserts and mountains that separate the Untied States from Mexico.
• Most of those who died perished from exposure and accidents.
• But a significant number—at least 20 on the Arizona border alone—appear to have been intentionally killed by bullets, hanging, or blunt-force trauma.
• We should call for the GAO to investigate border deaths with an eye towards taking action against those who commit these murders.