We are a nation of great people with laws that must be obeyed in order to maintain a civilized society. Reform of our immigration system is one of our most controversial national issues. I am of Mexican-American descent and the mother of four children. I understand fully that one of the greatest human desires is to provide a better life for your children. If you are jobless and hungry and you know that hope is just across the border, it’s hard to wait in line to become a legal immigrant. So many have already ignored the law and faced no consequences for their actions. We are a unique nation of immigrants and we have always welcomed legal immigrants with open arms.

There are a couple of key issues that I believe must be addressed collectively if we are going to clean up our immigration mess:

1. The first thing that must happen is that our borders must be secure. There is no precedent for the kind of terrorist and criminal threats that currently face our nation. We must be firm in the protection of our country. There are 38 ports of entry where we must beef up Border Security and push back the drug cartels. Securing our border must be our number #1 priority.

2. We must deport all illegal immigrants with any criminal record. Incarceration costs approximately $40,000 per inmate annually. California and the nation cannot afford this added expense. Criminal illegal immigrants must be returned to their home country for prosecution and punishment.

3. The major fault in our system is the immigration process itself. It is riddled in red tape and can be a bureaucratic nightmare for those who attempt to go through the process legally. We need to fix the system to make it less arduous for all of the immigrants who use the system to migrate legally. It shouldn’t take 5 to 10 years to legally migrate to the United States.

4. Illegal immigrants who can prove they have employment, a place to live and are learning English to become a part of this wonderful country need to have a pathway to become legally documented. If they can show they have lived here more than two years, we should require them to pay a fine for breaking our immigration laws. Then we should work to ensure they are paying regular taxes and have taken the steps required to secure legal status in this country.

5. Once they are part of our system, and have passed all legal requirements, such as obtaining a “Green Card”, filing proper tax returns, and having proof of car insurance, then they should be able to receive a CA driver’s license.

6. Every employer should be required to verify that all employees are properly documented.

This problem will not be solved overnight. It’s delusional to think we are going to pick up and remove the estimated 15 million people from our great nation without enormous disruption to families and our economy. The travesty is that this situation should have never been allowed to happen. We must fix the system so that this never happens again. And we must assimilate, hard working immigrants of all nationalities, who are already here, and who are not criminals, to become a legal part of our community. By requiring immigrants to pay their fair share of taxes we can help insure they are truly equal members of our society.

Let’s solve this issue together and focus on moving our country out of its current economic crisis. It will benefit everyone if we can convert the estimated 15 million undocumented people to be a legitimate part of our society and contributing to our tax base. We will all be richer if we work together for the good of our communities.