Senator Fred Thompson on Illegal Immigration and Securing the Borders

Although Fred Dalton Thompson, actor and former United States senator (R) from Tennessee, hasn't officially announced his candidacy for the Presidency yet, he's making good use of the blogosphere, radio and television to let Americans know where he stands on the issues. And when this straight talking Tennessean refers to the comprehensive immigration bill as a "legislative pig", well, it becomes very clear that Fred Thompson sees securing the borders as vital to the sovereignty of the United States.

Fred Thompson recently spoke on Paul Harvey's radio show about the comprehensive immigration bill that's currently under debate.

Is it any wonder that a lot of folks today feel like they're being sold a phony bill of goods on border security? A "comprehensive" plan doesn't mean much if the government can't accomplish one of its most basic responsibilities for its citizens - securing its borders. A nation without secure borders will not long be a sovereign nation.

No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it's not going to win any beauty contests. In fact, given Congress's track record, the bill will probably get a lot uglier - at least from the public's point of view. And agreeing to policies before actually seeing what the policies are is a heck of a way to do business.

We should scrap this "comprehensive" immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders - or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty.

In March, Fred Thompson wrote in the National Review Online that perhaps a little plain talk to Mexico, a government that "apparently has an economic policy based on exporting their own citizens, while complaining about U.S. immigration policies that are far less exclusionary than their own", might go something like this: