Say Anything Blog

Mark Halperin at Time has a run-down of Fred Thompson’s illegal immigration platform.  As someone who has long promoted the “tall fence with a wide gate” approach to illegal immigration, I think it’s nearly perfect.

Here are the highlights:

• No Amnesty
 
• Enforce Existing Federal Laws … including:
1. End Sanctuary Cities
     
2. Deny discretionary Federal education grants
     
3. Deny discretionary Federal education grants as appropriate to public universities that violate federal law by offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens without also offering identical benefits to United States citizens, regardless of whether or not they live in the state

 

• Increased Border Security: Doubling Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents handling interior enforcement, increasing the Border Patrol to at least 25,000 agents, and increasing detention space to incarcerate illegal aliens we arrest rather than letting them go with a promise to show up later for legal proceedings against them.

 

• Attrition through Enforcement

 

• Maximize Legal Immigration Program Efficiency

 

• Modernize Immigration Law/Policy

 

• English as Official Language

 

• Preference for American Military Service

You can find more specifics about Fred’s platform on this issue at the link above.  Personally, I think it’s the perfect balance between recognizing the realities of the illegal immigration issue while simultaneously not rewarding those who have come here illegally.

In the past those in favor of amnesty for illegal immigrants have argued that there are too many illegals in this country to deport.  Fred’s “attrition through enforcement” policy addresses that.  If you first secure the border and then deport the illegals already here as law enforcement agents come across them you can dwindle the number of illegals in this country down.  Obviously we can’t round them up all at once, but we can certainly reduce their numbers over time with appropriate policies that do not reward them for coming here illegally.

Fred’s plans to make legal immigration into this country easier would also ease tension at the border.  After all, I think we can all recognize that an influx of people who want to come here and be successful is a positive thing for this country.  If we can let more of those people in (with appropriate levels of screening) we can remove some of the impetus for illegally immigrating.

To be perfectly honest, this platform from Fred is what the GOP should have been advancing all along.  Were it not for other problems with corruption and overspending, one could almost say that had the GOP been advancing this platform before the election they might still be in the majority in Congress.