It's rare that I find myself sgreeing even a little bit with the likes of Pat Buchanan, but in some respects in in the same camp with him when it comes to immigration, at least a little immigration.

Let me pregace this by saying that I think immigration is the backbone of this country. My dad's parents arrived here from Eastern Europe in the 30s and my mom's grandparents arrived from Soviet Union around the turn of the century. If it wasn't for immigration I, and likely anyone reading this wouldn't be here. Immigration from all corners of the world must continue. We need the smartest and most ambitious students to come to our universities. We need hard working people to pick our fruit and labor in our fields. And we need people to work across the country as nurses, doctors, and almost every high tech field you can imagine. But all these people need to and will come to this country legally.

The United States is a country of laws. When laws are broken and there's no enforcement, it undermines the rule of law. Illegal immigration unmines the rule of law and needs to be stopped. If that was the only reason, we would have or should have enough of an impetus to stop it. But it's also a huge security. We have no control over our border. We don't know who is coming across. And if we're really at war, it's an asymmetric war and the way anyone is going to attack the US is by coming here illegally across the Mexican border. It's just insane that 5 years on from 911 this issue is still plaguing us.

So what have got to do?

1) We need to shut down the border. Plain and simple. If we can't stop people from coming into our country, if we can't know who or what is coming across, what is the point of even having a border? What's the point?

2) We need to enforce laws against hiring illegal aliens. If we enforce the laws and the penalities are stiff, there will be no work to draw people to risk their lives to come here.

3) We need to do everything we can to improve the Mexican economy

4) We need to face the fact that we have something like 12 million illegal immigrants here now. These people have broken the law and they are criminals. They might have families here. They might be working essential jobs. They might be obeying the laws and paying taxes. But they are criminals. However, we're not going to round them up and send them home. It would cost billions and billions of dollars. We need to find a way to bring these people into society, but make them pay a price that a) they can live with and b) that we can live with.

5) We need to have an immigration policy that is not odds with the needs of the economy.

I don't claim to have all the answers. I don't even know if these 5 things will have any effect. But we have to do something because the status quo is patently unacceptable.