:: Hanging up the Immigration Crisis  ::

That Sunday afternoon, I walked into the room to find Dad with a pencil behind his ear, his Sunday church suit jacket thrown over a chair, sweat glistening on his forehead, and a perplexed look on his face. In front of him spread all over the dining room table on Mom’s nicest tablecloth was granddad’s old level, two hammers that he had arranged perfectly parallel to one another, a couple of rulers, an old rusted measuring tape, two screw drivers, several screws, and a half dozen types of nails in varying sizes and shapes. On the floor were the remains of the innards of dad’s tool box apparently dumped out in the quest for a particular nail. Dad was staring at a wall of chicken-scratch pencil-drawn markings and several miscalculated nail holes where Mom had asked him 45 minutes earlier to hang a family photo.

“Now, son,” he said. “Where would you hang this photo?” With little less than 20 minutes before my parent’s guests were to arrive for Sunday supper, I was surprised that dad would think to consult me on this matter at this particular juncture. But with the ease of one on a casual stroll, he cocked his head and moved around the table to get a better look at his target for the photo. Before I had a chance to answer though, Mom rounded the corner with a basket of hot biscuits in her hands only to stop short in disbelief at the state of her dining room. Recovering quickly from her shock and without saying a word Mom placed the biscuits on the table, picked up the hammer, drove a nail square into the wall, hung the photo with perfect symmetry, and stood back placing her hands on her hips. “Now,” she said slowly unfastening the apron that hang around her waist, “Randy, go get your dad a clean shirt.”

There are complex federal problems. And there are not-so-complex federal problems. There are problems that require us to pull out all of the tools in the toolbox, to consult the scholarly minds of today, to call in panels of experts, to hold press conferences, and to protest in the streets. And then there are those that require good old-fashioned common sense. Our nation’s immigration crisis is the latter.

Consider the following facts: Today as it stands the United States accepts more legal immigrants than all of the other nations in the world combined. And, that’s legal immigrants. That does not factor in the 11 million illegal immigrations currently in the United States. Let me put this figure in perspective for you. If we lined up the entire population of the Commonwealth of Virginia next to all of the illegal immigrants in the United States, they’d outnumber us by 3,500,000 people.

Now common sense tells us that the problem here is not minuscule loopholes in the law. It is not a lack of compassion. It is not that we are turning from our immigrant traditions. These numbers scream of massive ineptitudes in our immigration policies. Our current immigration system is broken. Not just broken. Massively broken, plagued by insufficient immigration enforcement, devoid of serious border security resources, and wrought with a wholesale disregard for our immigration laws.

Now is not a time for complex solutions, but for common-sense. And if you ask my constituents what they should do, they will almost to a tee, answer you with a three-step remedy. Step 1: Recognize that amnesty is not a solution; Step 2: Construct a fence along the southern border, and Step 3: Fund sufficient personnel to enforce our immigration laws, which means keeping illegal immigrants out and helping legal immigrants work through the complex paperwork mazes.

The House, with my support, has taken action on these items, but the Senate is working on a bill containing some border controls and some enforcement features, but also dangerous amnesty programs. The final product of the Senate’s bill is likely to produce half measures on border security and immigration enforcement and full blown amnesty programs.

Immigration has been an issue for the United States since its birth, and our nation’s founding fathers have written about the importance of immigrants adhering to the rules of our legal system. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules.”

Thomas Jefferson was correct; our laws acknowledge and reward those who respect America, and those who expect acknowledgement and reward from America should in turn respect our laws. We want people to “earn the American Dream” not “steal the American Dream.” Instead of relying on the common sense of the American people, the Senate is pulling out its toolboxes, lining up its press conferences, and bringing in its experts, and if Dad were alive today he’d tell them what he learned years ago from Mom. The answer lies right under your nose: build the fence, staff the borders, and enforce our laws.