Where Does Walt Minnick Stand On Illegal Aliens?

Where Does Walt Minnick Stand On Illegal Aliens?

A recent survey by Rasmussen Reports shows that there is overwhelming support for stopping the influx of illegal aliens into the United States:

A growing majority of Americans believe that gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing illegal immigrants, and three out of four (74%) say the government is not doing enough to make that happen.
Sixty-nine percent (69%) of voters in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey say controlling the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers, while just 21% think legalization is more important.
Only 14% think the government is doing enough to secure the borders.
Thirty-four percent (34%) say the current immigration situation makes them angry, and another 25% characterize themselves as mildly frustrated. For 40%, immigration is just one of many issues.
These numbers are comparable to the findings in a June survey on the same topic. At that time, 83% directed their anger at the federal government, while only 12% blamed the illegals themselves.

I know where Bill Sali (R-ID) stands:

"President Ronald Reagan was right when he said, “The simple truth is that we’ve lost control of our borders and no nation can do that and survive.” Securing our borders is a matter of national security, personal security and financial security. We cannot claim to be serious about the war on terror or say that we support our troops when terrorists, in many areas, can simply walk across our borders. While employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants should be prosecuted, the fact remains that terrorists are not coming here looking for jobs. While illegal immigrants are clearly causing serious financial pressure on our schools, courts and health care systems, the terrorists are not coming here for education or health care. Something is terribly wrong when we send our military to secure Iraq’s border with Syria while at the same time refusing to secure the borders of this country.

Congress must take immediate action to secure our borders. Securing our borders will not only enhance our national security, it will improve our financial security by stopping the epidemic of illegal immigration and the great strain that illegal immigrants place on our state and local governments. I would like to note that in 2005 our border patrol apprehended some 115,000 illegal aliens from countries other than Mexico (no one knows how many others made it through).

There are some who say we must give amnesty to the millions of illegal immigrants in our country – I disagree. Amnesty does nothing more than reward illegal behavior. We must keep respect for the rule of law as the principle shaping the heart of our border and immigration policy. It is nonsense to think that a person who broke our laws to enter our country illegally will suddenly begin obeying our laws if we give them legal status through a grant of amnesty.

Where does his Democratic opponent, Walt Minnick, stand? Under "Issues," Minnick has a number of different pages--but not a word about illegal immigration that I can find. Nor was I able to find anything that Minnick has said in the news media on the subject.

I don't know about you, but I think it would be quite entertaining to try and get Minnick to say where he stands on this issue. Since he is a Democrat, I rather suspect that he is going to try and weasel word his response rather than admit that his objective is to keep cheap, easily exploited labor coming into the country for the benefit of business interests.

UPDATE: Here's a video where Minnick agrees that we need to control our borders for national security reasons. He agrees that something needs to be done on the demand side, such as prohibiting hiring of illegal aliens. (Well, it's a bit late to do that. That's already illegal.) Minnick does claim that we need more immigration to fill jobs that Americans won't do, at least when the economy is growing. Minnick says that it "doesn't make sense" to arrest and deport illegal aliens, and wants to give them an incentive to "come out of the shadows" by paying a penalty and getting at the back of line. But he also said that deporting them doesn't make sense. It appears that he supporting the McCain/Kennedy amnesty proposal.

UPDATE 2: Just to be clear about this: Minnick is correct that we don't have the resources to track down and deport all twelve million illegal aliens. But we do have the resources to deport those who come to our attention as a result of Social Security matching when someone starts work, or when an illegal alien is arrested. We do need to work on the demand side--by punishing employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. We do need a better fence. But when city and county governments prohibit their police officers from informing ICE about illegal aliens that they have arrested--that's idiotic. It might take ten years to get this problem under control, using all of these methods. But it's better than rewarding those who have broken our immigration law, by giving them a path to citizenship.