No fence no amnesty. Period. Stop.
Fence. No amnesty. Period. Stop.
Actually, the amnesty known affectionately in politi-speech as the "comprehensive immigration reform" has nothing to do with the "fence" or, more broadly, "border security" and should not be welded or tied together, as some politicians are trying to do to placate the constituents.
Those politicos who say that we need "border security first" before legalizing the illegal aliens are either naive or, much more likely, cynically duplicitous because there is no proper quantitative and qualitative definition for "secure border" that cannot be redefined in due time as "sufficiently secure". Any politician who talks about "border security first" is either too naive to understand what it means or, more likely, lying to you in the hope of punting the "immigration issue" and as such, should be bounced out of office in the next election cycle.
The illegal aliens (who are now widely described as "undocumented workers" or "undocumented immigrants" but better known as "undocumented Democrats") violated the sovereignty of the country by illegally crossing the border or other means and, while it may not be cost-effective to allocate large resources to specifically target them for deportation, it's quite reasonable and relatively easy to make their unwelcome stay in the country very uncomfortable and unlucrative.
In any case, they should not be rewarded by legalizing their status, let alone even contemplate rewarding their illegal actions by insane "path to citizenship" which will only serve as attraction for more people to do same.
The security of the border is the prime responsibility of any country's government - else, there is no "country" to speak of - and therefore should not be a "conditional part" of any bill, deal, reform ("comprehensive" or not) and should not be a part of "immigration policy".
As such, the true reform of the border security should start with the questions to the government agencies responsible for the border and the reasons for how the millions (!) of people were able to violate it with ease and find it profitable to settle in the country, most likely violating other laws (identification, taxation, employment and other fraudulent acts).
Where "in-sourcing" of immigrants (low-, medium- or high-skill) is truly necessary, it should be handled like any other transparent trade or immigration policy, through temporary/time-controlled work visas, with employers justifying the need and expense, and simplified / "standardized" to allow for minimum bureaucracy and corruption.
So the true "comprehensive" immigration reform, instead of rewarding the violators for committing illegal acts, should penalize the agencies responsible for oversight and security, and if the agencies cannot (or more accurately, would not) do their job properly, the solution is simple - cut or reduce the funding of these agencies and use the money to "outsource" some or all of their functions to private security firms and/or organizations which can compete for the contracts based on productivity, cost and other efficiencies.
If Republicans finally start defining the "immigration" issue, rather than meekly defending their "inhumane" positions, they will find a lot of sympathy among their constituents and population overall (who will learn how much it costs and will cost them in the future). They should start by divorcing the "border security" from "immigration" and separating "immigration" from illegal violations, instead of trying to tie them all together - a trap of their own making - which both Democrats and GOP-e RINOs exploit to achieve yet another monstrous "comprehensive reform" that will keep destroying the country and her foundations.