I think the key to getting rid of illegal immigration, no matter where its coming from, is that you need to have a good legal apparatus for immigration.
As president, I will fight illegal immigration in order to preserve an appropriate level of legal immigration. At the same time, I believe our system of legal immigration needs to be re-examined. As part of this re-examination, I support a modest, temporary reduction in the annual rate of legal immigration.
We need legal immigration as an alternative to illegal immigration and a way of getting the millions of unauthorized immigrants already here to get legal and get in compliance with our laws.
I think we need a real plan, which is why I have offered a much more specific approach to securing the border, fixing the legal immigration system and addressing illegal immigration.
Part of the problem is there are people in Washington, D.C. in positions of power to whom the border is just a nuisance, and I think some of them believe that illegal immigration is a moral good. It is not. It undermines legal immigration.
There is no quick fix for illegal immigration. But only when we achieve better control of our borders and better respect for our immigration laws can we give meaning to the discussion we need to have over reforming the numbers, categories, and procedures for legal immigration into the United States.
We need to be discussing issues specifically to help the American people. And that would not include illegal aliens. These are people - I'm for immigration - legal immigration. I've been an immigration attorney. But people who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health care services.
Cracking down on illegal immigration was a key priority when I ran in 2002, 2006, and during my time as governor. Illegal immigration is a big problem, and it needs to be strongly addressed.
We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country.
No one believed [the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens] was tough enough on illegal immigration, and it didn't give enough flexibility on future legal immigration.
On immigration policy, I believe we ought to call an immediate halt, stop illegal immigration and reduce legal immigration back to about 250,000 to 300,000, to more easily assimilate the Americans who've come here in the last 30 years.
Ending illegal immigration only strengthens legal immigration.
If we build the legal immigration system better, then they come here, and we'll have a whole lot less illegal immigration.
We've even lost the definition of immigration. "Immigration" today, if you listen to the left, equals anybody who wants to come into the country should be allowed. That's not what immigration is. That's illegal immigration, and we ought to all oppose it.
Even if we didn't have a single person in the USA in violation of immigration laws, we'd still have to do immigration reform, because our legal immigration system is broken. It's not good for anybody.
I think what we need to do is to have an immigration system where legal immigration is easier.
One: balance the budget now, not later. Two: Get Americans jobs by ending illegal immigration and making legal immigration harder. Lastly: Impose term limits.