First Things First On Immigration: Secure The Border

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is slowing down the immigration reform locomotive. Good thing, because an altogether separate, more pressing issue beckons: securing the border.

We have an absurd immigration situation in America today. Millions of poor, unskilled foreigners slip into the country illegally and sink comfortably into an American welfare state already headed for bankruptcy.

... the limited number of immigrants [illegal aliens] we can absorb should instead be the highly skilled...

Likely 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Sunday lessened the hysteria surrounding hopes for a new round of amnesty for more than 11 million [to 40 million] illegal aliens now in the U.S...

Rubio wants the floating of such a proposal to begin a national debate that will include committee hearings and amendments from senators outside the Gang of Eight. "In order to succeed, this process cannot be rushed or done in secret," Rubio insisted...

The Framers established the upper chamber so that legislation could be poured "into the senatorial saucer to cool it," like pouring "tea into your saucer to cool it," as George Washington is said to have told Jefferson when he returned from France and asked where the idea of a U.S. Senate came from.

Over a quarter century ago, when the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli reform "solved" the nation's then far-less-serious illegal alien problem with an amnesty of about 3 million illegals and a toughening of hiring laws that wasn't tough enough...

Now, six amnesties later, the '86 reform remains an illusion that lulled politicians and the public to sleep for decades. It took 9/11 to awaken people to the hazards of a porous border that still plagues us today. A Border Patrol agent told Town Hall this week they've seen "the number of illegal aliens double, maybe even triple, since amnesty talk started happening" in Washington.

...Until America first controls its borders — something the federal government is actually supposed to do — the "path to citizenship" for illegals (amnesty) is a nonstarter.