RIGHT SPEAK: President Trump's 'zero tolerance' Immigration Policy Isn't Anti-Immigrant

Photo: Loren Elliott/AFP/Getty Images

An underreported news item showing that approvals for U.S. citizenship applications have reached a five-year high proves America isn’t anti-immigrant.

Nor was it anti-immigrant at the beginning of my time in Congress when I represented 300 miles of the Texas-Mexico border. In 1994, a Democrat-led commission made many of the same recommendations on immigration reform the Trump administration is now making — and I included some in my own legislation.

What has changed since then is, regrettably, immigration has become precisely what the iconic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas said it shouldn’t be: partisan and political. Immigration, she said “like foreign policy, ought to be a place where the national interest comes first, last, and always.”

America wants — and needs — immigrants who wish to come here, work hard, build better lives for their families and contribute to society.

But our broken immigration system, with its misplaced priorities and invitation to lawlessness, must be fixed. It begins by reordering our priorities. A fair, workable immigration system gives preference to much-needed skills and education in addition to family relations.

We must end the de facto amnesty offered by a system that fails to enforce our laws consistently. And we must end the underground market for labor by instituting a functioning guest worker program. The result will put American economic interests and those of our workers first, and boost our economy by ensuring entrepreneurship, job creation and innovation are rewarded.