Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson introduced a tough border security bill into the Senate yesterday that would make all thoughts of Comprehensive Immigration Reform and a guest worker program be put on the back-burner until our borders were secure and the flood of illegal aliens into our country was stopped. The Department of Homeland Security would have to certify to the President and the Congress that all the measures in the bill were met before any guest worker program were implemented.

Included in the bill are these five main points:

• Manpower – authorizing 14,000 new full-time Border Patrol Agents as well as 2,500 new Port of Entry Inspectors and 250 new Deputy U.S. Marshals.
• Detention beds – authorizing detention facilities with an additional 20,000 detention beds to end the practice of “catch and release.”
• Barriers – authorize additional barriers such as fences, roads or underground sensors where appropriate.
• Unmanned Aerial Vehicles -- authorize more than $450 million to acquire and maintain a squadron of unmanned aerial vehicles with high-tech sensors and satellite communication to allow coverage on the border by an unmanned vehicle 24 hours a day.
• Biometric ID – establish a biometric secure identification card program so employers can verify an immigrants’ status.

While I find this fine for border security, also included in the bill is an amnesty portion. Upon implementation of the border security measures, illegal aliens would have one year to come forward and prove employment of themselves or their head of household. They would then be be screened with a criminal and terrorist background check. Once past that hurdle they'll be given a two year temporary work permit which is renewable as long as they take an approved English and civics lesson within those two years and remain employed and with a clean criminal record.

So in effect they'd be legalized and able to pursue citizenship in the same manner as a legal immigrant who went through the proper channels to come here from the beginning.

I find that portion distasteful. While many will claim that we can't deport all of the illegal aliens here, we can sure as hell make them want to leave on their own. We need workplace enforcement, denial of benefits to illegal aliens and English to be declared our official language to stop making things so easy on them at our expense.

Johnny Isakson Senate Page

“There is no way you can reform legal immigration unless you first stop the porous borders and the flow of illegal immigrants,” Isakson said on the Senate floor.

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“The reason we have this problem is we have the greatest nation on the face of this Earth. You don't find anybody trying to break out of the United States of America. They're all trying to break in,” Isakson said. “And they are for a very special reason: the promise of hope and opportunity and jobs. But we must make the only way to come to America be the legal way to come to America.”

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“We’ve had in this country for two centuries a pathway to citizenship, and it’s known as legal immigration. It’s absolutely essential that we restore the confidence of the American people, and we send the message to those that yearn to come to this country that there’s one way to get here and that one way is the legal route,” Isakson said

Text of the bill is not currently available, but it should appear here shortly.