Border Security and Immigration are not bedfellows

Every politican who links border security with immigration, except in the most superficial sense, should be slapped. It's like saying that the need for secure prisons is predicated upon the need to make "INSERT CRIME X HERE" punishable with a minimum jail sentence. The two issues have nothing to do with each other. One is a substantive policy, one is a procedural concern.

Our immigration policy is a completely separate issue from the necessity of having secure, impermeable borders. Every nation-state has the inherent duty to protect its borders. Period. Even if we decided to have an open immigration policy, it doesn't mean we should have open borders. Particularly if we want any type of comprehensive national policy on guns, drugs, or nuclear bomb carrying terrorists bent on destroying CTU headquarters in Los Angeles.

So please: stop equating border security with being anti-immigration.