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Letter: Our immigration system isn’t broken

(Gregory Bull | The Associated Press) People hold hands in prayer during a protest near the border with Tijuana, Mexico, Monday, Dec. 10, 2018, in San Diego. U.S. Border Patrol agents have handcuffed more than a dozen people participating in a demonstration organized by a Quaker group at the U.S.-Mexico border, calling for the end of the detention and deportation of immigrants and the militarization of the border.

I get so tired of hearing people say we have a "broken immigration system."

No, we don't. In fact, our immigration policy is the most generous in the entire world. We have allowed in around a million legal immigrants every year since the 1980s, including 1.18 million in 2016. That's a lot, and is very kind of us.

Some of the decent, honorable foreigners trying to emigrate properly have had to wait a long time, true. But that is not because of government inefficiency. It is because we have many millions of applicants. We can't let them all in at once, so they have to wait their turn.

The only problem with immigration is a situation we created for ourselves. We have given amnesty to Illegal aliens several times. That only encourages more to come here to hopefully try to get in on the next amnesty. That must be stopped forever.

We allow businesses to get away with hiring illegal workers. We can't do that. A guest worker permit system could be established to accommodate need there.

If we ceased all amnesties, made it illegal for businesses to hire undocumented workers and enforced the prevention of illegal border crossings, there wouldn’t even be a need for a wall.

Those are the logical and doable changes that should be made. Not "comprehensive immigration reform," as many keep calling for.

James Green, Heber City

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