Controlling the Border and Reforming Our Immigration System by Restoring Respect for the Rule of Law

Last week, along with my colleague John Cornyn of Texas, I introduced comprehensive legislation designed to secure America's borders and deal with the fact that more than 10 million people are living illegally in the United States.

A lot of people ask me: "Why should we believe this will be any different than other ill-fated immigration 'reforms'?" It is a question that should be asked of any proposal that claims to resolve these issues.

The primary reason I believe our bill represents a genuine solution is that it contains tough, overlapping new measures to enforce the law at our borders as well as in the interior and at the workplace, and also provides the resources to implement them. Those include:

* 10,000 new Border Patrol Agents;

* 10,000 new workplace enforcement investigators;

* 1,250 new Customs and Border Protection officers;

* $5 billion over five years for accompanying technology and infrastructure to stop illegal border crossings;

* 1,000 new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigators to combat smuggling;

* 1,000 new DHS fraud investigators;

* 1,000 new trial attorneys to litigate immigration cases; and

* 10,000 new detention beds.

The bill also provides employers, for the first time, a highly reliable and mandatory system for verifying workplace eligibility, and creates a temporary worker program to meet the needs of America's economy, both of which are critical components of a workable system.

The time is ripe for real immigration reform. Even members of Congress from non-border states, who long ignored illegal immigration as "not their problem," have come to appreciate that the current situation is unacceptable.

Americans recognize that a porous border has resulted in exploitation of the vulnerable and a pervasive sense of lawlessness, and now poses a serious threat to our national security as well, as increasing numbers of nationals from countries with ties to terrorism are slipping across the border.

Sen. Cornyn and I represent two states that account for approximately 85 percent of the nation's southern border, and we chair the key subcommittees on these issues. (He leads the subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship, and I lead the subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security.)

In preparing this bill, we conducted a thorough review of the nation's immigration laws, and held seven separate hearings on various aspects of the issue. We found a desperate need to reduce backlogs for legitimate visa applications, improve the tracking of visitors who overstay their visas, and streamline the overall deportation process so no one who should be removed is allowed to slip into the general population.

We also found, to our astonishment, that large numbers of non-Mexicans apprehended at the border are released into our society, even if their identities cannot be established, simply for lack of space to detain them.

All of these issues and more are addressed in our bill. Every illegal immigrant now in the United States would be required to come forward and undergo background checks and health screening. They would then be allowed to work and travel legally, but would be required to return to their homelands within five years.

There are incentives for doing so earlier: after returning home, those wishing to re-enter the United States legally as part of our new temporary worker program would have the opportunity to do so (in situations where the American workforce is insufficient to meet demand). The earlier that current illegal aliens comply with the new rules, the quicker they will be able to come back to the United States, and the longer they would be able to stay as legitimate temporary workers.

Those who continue to evade the law, however, will eventually find they can't because of the new system of tamper-proof documentation and eligibility verification. Once caught, they'll be removed — ineligible to even enter the United States for 10 years.

By requiring those who seek permanent residency and citizenship to return home and apply from their own countries, our bill avoids amnesty. As a nation, we have made that mistake and learned from it.

We don't claim our bill is perfect, and we're ready to listen to other ideas. But there is a growing consensus in Washington that this problem needs to be dealt with, and we believe the sooner the better.