OnTheIssues interviews with presidential candidates: on Immigration

Paul Adams: Fenced Orchard: hard rules leads to self-deportation

A: I foster the 'fenced orchard' analogy. If your orchard is unfenced and no guard is standing by the tree, then don't complain if passersby pick your trees. The onus to build a fence and guard the tree is on you. Do we need a fence? Yes. Could it be bypassed? Yes. We need to think really carefully about fences. Self-deportation would be a better option, provided the States chose to make it hard for undocumented labor to assimilate. What we have now is similar condition we had in pre-civil war America, when the south was economically dependent on cheap labor for its survival. The same holds true today of States like California.

Paul Adams: Path to citizenship after two years of asylum

Marc Allan Feldman: There are illegal activities but there are no illegal people

A: Strongly support. There are illegal activities, but there are no illegal people. People who love this country and want to work to support and protect this country belong here. An influx of immigrants would also help trigger the dismantling of the welfare state and promote the shift in responsibility back to families, communities, and voluntary, private, charitable organizations.

Mark Stewart: Illegal immigration costs us our sovereignty AND our culture

AND THE AMERICAN CULTURE IS GREAT. We stand for Judeo- Christian values that have civilized/improved most of the world. I am the one candidate arguing that illegal immigration costs us our sovereignty AND our culture.

Deporting is feasible. Don't let pundits tell you otherwise. Two months after I am inaugurated, I will set up tribunals to adjudicate the tricky cases. Where there is no evidence of proper immigration, many will be incentivized to self-repatriate. For the rest, escorting 80% of illegals home is feasible in one summer. Use school buses, Greyhounds, Cruise ships, and C-130s. My exceptions would be those who've learned English, and have begun promoting American values, and POSSIBLY those who've lived here 17 years or more.

Mark Stewart: Pathway to citizenship? An escort home!

A: I have a nice pathway to citizenship. It's called a bus or a cruise or a C-130 escort home. And it resumes with illegals getting in line like legal would-be immigrants have done. After they who've done it right have cleared our immigration hurdles (which I will reduce), then I'd let the illegal aliens who make restitution and who have great references from multiple Americans begin the return process.

Jim Hedges: Citizenship for illegal aliens only under some circumstances

A: under some circumstances, but moderately oppose

Roseanne Barr: Supports illegal immigrants earning citizenship

Q: Support

Virgil Goode: Illegal immigrants shouldn't earn citizenship

A: No.

David Walker: Enforce against employers hiring illegals

David Walker: Enforce employment laws on employers, not against immigrants

A: Yes, under limited conditions like military service. In the vast majority of cases there'd be a pathway to legal status instead of citizenship.

Q: What about enforcement?

Q: My view is that we need reform but also enforcement, and then to let economics take over. We're not enforcing the laws.

Q: Enforce against whom? Should immigration laws be enforced by focusing on illegal immigrants themselves, or on their employers?

A: Enforcement means against employers. But we should have more work permits--legal--and provide pathways to legal status as well. Citizenship might result from serving in the military, for example, a much higher bar than for legal status.

Rocky Anderson: Supports illegal immigrants earning citizenship

A: Strongly Support

Andre Barnett: Opposes illegal immigrants earning citizenship

A: Disagree, the first word should tell the tale.

Robert Steele: We committed genocide on Native Americans

• We genocided the Native Americans to be here, no one has clean hands on this issue.
• Landlords and employers, not armed guards, are how we enforce the law
• A sound foreign policy and a commitment to stabilizing the rest of the world is a vital foundation for dramatically reducing illegal immigration pressures
• Full employment for all citizens comes before any legal immigration--deny all requests from US corporations who lie to Congress solely to reduce labor costs

Robert Steele: Support illegal immigrants earning citizenship

A: Support. Illegal immigrants come to America for two reasons: because it has been a land of opportunity; and because our failed foreign policy has supported over 40 dictators who make their own people so miserable they choose to emigrate. This needs to be brought under control by holding landlords and employers accountable for renting or employing illegal immigrants once the amnesty period is over.

Gary Johnson: Let some, but not all, illegal immigrants stay in US

Scott Keller: Change Dream Act so everyone wins

A: Support. I would significantly change the Dream Act such that everyone wins from all sides of the issue and get significant collaboration in the effort. We need to overhaul the INS, streamline it, make it more efficient, and size it such that they can handle the load. I am not in favor of a fence on the border but rather a working relationship with the people on both sides of the border to address the root causes of the problems.

Scott Keller: Build arcologies at the borders that serve as fences

This also operates as a fence if you string up a batch of them across the border, but more importantly it gives immigration a home at the border.

It also most importantly allows us to insulate and protect ourselves and regulate flow better by stalling it out if it doesn't pass basic reality tests like speaking English or being employable.

It also allows the USA to meaningfully test and reality test potential applicants and see how they really do objectively to score... and reject those who are lazy or who have serious issues as bad investments.

Brian Moore: End the militarization of the US/Mexican border