Immigration: Which Side of the Fence are You On?

I went to school with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).  We went to toga parties and rafted down the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels, TX, near San Antonio.  Senator Cornyn has proposed the Cornyn Amendment to the immigration bill S. 744 in the US Senate requiring the US government, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) units to hire many more border security guards and build a 19 foot fence along the entire Mexican-United States border, which spans nearly 2,000 miles.  The significance of the Cornyn Amendment is that the comprehensive immigration reform provisions relating to creating a path to US citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented persons in the US would NOT even begin to take effect until after the border is secure. 

 Many proponents of immigration reform have labeled the Cornyn Amendment a “poison pill” to immigration reform. 

 US citizens live along the US-Mexican border.  They own ranches and have their private family homes on property spanning the border of the US and Mexico.  They have horses, sheep and cattle grazing  along the border.  In some areas, their fences are cut on a nightly basis, so that undocumented persons can cross the border into the US. Individuals who arrange to transport undocumented people across our borders are called “coyotes”.  They make their living by transporting people into the US.  The coyotes are armed with guns.  People crossing into the US get bitten by snakes; there are shootings, some die of heat exhaustion.  The farmers that live along the border find their fences cut, in the morning; their livestock spooked, and even find bodies on their property.  It is a terrible situation.

 However, the cost of building a 2,000 mile fence, and the cost of hiring many more border security guards would be borne by the American people, under the Cornyn Amendment.  Who will determine if the border is secure?  How secure is secure?  How long will this process take?  Will the rest of immigration reform, which would provide a path to citizenship, ever take effect?

 If the path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented living in the shadows in the US is not contingent upon securing our borders, but is allowed to proceed concurrently with securing our borders, then the undocumented persons would start to pay their filing fees, would pay their back taxes, would fund our Social Security and health care programs, and would pay the fines imposed by Congress for the privilege of becoming legal.  This is the money that could fund the building of the fence, the hiring of more border security guards. 

 Do you want to pay for the big fence, or do you want the immigrants to pay for the fence?

 Call your Senator and let him/her know what side of the fence you are on.