What should federal immigration reform look like?

"I would divide it into two sectors, and it would be not be legal and illegal, it would be Mexican and non-Mexican …[because if you look at that border, it was created by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and you can study about that in Chicano Studies at the University. That's where I learned it from. And that gave good neighbor relations between Mexico and the United States. And it gave the northern Mexicans, who we did not declare war on, we were not at war with them, we declared war on southern Mexico after southern Mexico declared war on northern Mexico for declaring independence. It gives them the rights to have language and cultural rights. So] what I would purpose for that is an international border zone. ... We would put factories there, build jobs at the border [and] bring jobs back from China and Asia. For the rest of the people I think those programs are working pretty good. [I definitely would never try to say the 14th Amendment would not allow people who were born here to be citizens. That's not the way it's ever been applied to...there were people who came over as indentured servants and their children were allowed to be citizens, I just don't think that there's any merit to taking peoples' citizenship away. So I would try to have business and political leadership in the Mexican border region, to build it up to be a strength for the U.S. economy for the long term."

Neither McCollum nor Collett mention the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that created the border, but say "we", probably Arizona and the Congress should unilaterally "secure the border" first, and then... So I am definitely looking at the true situation, while many American politicians are responding to economic and politic winds. If America follows this idea, taking another look at the basic treaty, it will not only give insight and guidance about the border issue, but also set the stage for proper development of the Mexico border and northern Mexico region. Do we want this region, including U.S. states, to look like Colombia? Or America? We need to fashion a coherent federal role.

McCollum position: "We need to work on border security first and foremost, but we need comprehensive immigration reform.

Collett position: "Secure the borders, first, foremost and as a precondition to everything else.

After that, people who have entered the country illegally but beyond that obeyed our laws [and have] been self-supporting for an extended period of time should be subject to a civil fine only and be eligible for permanent resident status.