Florida's Second Congressional District

New Solutions       New Direction      New Hope

Somewhere between 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants have migrated to the United States over the last decade.  To address this issue we need a massive cooperative effort between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies working with U.S. based employers. 

I am against any legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for those who came to the United States illegally.  A pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants is unfair to those immigrants that took the painstaking time and effort to come to the United States legally.

A sensible approach to comprehensive immigration reform should continue to be given top priority.  

There are two key components to the immigration problems:  (1) the large  number illegal immigrants living and working  in our country, and (2) U.S. based employers hiring illegal workers. 

The 111th congress needs to   SHIFT THE FOCUS   of attention on some of the provisions contained in the S.1348: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.   This bill was introduced in the Untied States Senate, but never voted on.

The portions of the bill that address tighter border security and fencing are commendable.  The shift of focus needs to be placed on a cooperative effort on the behalf of employers and shift away from the provisions granting special consideration to illegal immigrants.  

In other words, our government must create a working relationship with U.S. employers to solve this problem.

Presently,  both the employers and illegal immigrants are working in tandem to conceal their illegal activity.  It is very difficult to document illegal immigrants when both the employers and employees continue to operate in the shadows.

The amount of law enforcement revenue and logistics required to track, detain, and deport illegal workers is astronomical.  The U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) is the leading agency working on this problem.

For example:

On Tuesday, Jun 12, 2007 federal agents raided the offices of a food processing plant in Portland, Oregon.  Approximately 100 workers were placed under administrative arrest and being prepared for possible deportation.

On Tuesday, May 13, 2008 a federal immigration raid at a meatpacking plant in Des Moines, Iowa seized 314 men and 76 women, making this day the largest immigration raid ever in U.S. history.

In both cases mentioned above, and with the abundant of smaller raids being conducted nationwide, the law enforcement agencies were right to raiding, chasing, deporting illegal immigrants and imposing fines on employers who hire illegal workers. 

With so many illegal immigrants working in our country,  a better method of tracking and documenting these immigrants must be pursued.  At the current rate of deportation, approximately 250,000 a year, it would take decades to resolve this issue.

I am in favor of  placing U.S. based employers in a less adversarial position.

Generally, employers are hiring people who provide the goods and services from which we all benefit.  Many of the illegal immigrants are working at jobs that will not be filled by most people living legally in our country. 

I propose a grace period that provides criminal  relief to U.S. based employers for a negotiated period of time. Our country needs support from the people of the United States to help solve the immigration problem, and the best place to start is with those employers dealing with illegal immigrants on a daily basis.

Similarly to the tax incentives being offered for energy independence,  we need to start offering employers support to initiate and conduct the documentation process of the illegal immigrants.  This effort would work  cooperatively with all of our law enforcement agencies.

During the grace period illegal workers will be required to be documented and work under our current laws.  When the legal time has expired, the immigrants must return home. In order to achieve this goal our nation's borders must be secured.

This issue becomes more complicated when illegal immigrants start raising families (anchor babies). The children become naturalized citizens of the United States. 

Paid for by the Mark Mulligan for Congress Committee