This question came up in the League of Women Voters survey, and then I got a loaded “survey” from an organization calling itself “Numbers USA” which was political division bait. I chose not to return the survey, but thought I’d share my position here.
I’m a first generation American. I do not see immigrants as a threat. I see them as part of the engine that built this country and still keeps it running.
A few years ago, I went to Ellis Island for the first time. I looked up my relatives, and found out my grandfather on my fathers side came over not once, but three times. I wish I knew why. It was a deeply moving experience.
Let’s start with what should be obvious. We should have secure borders. A nation ought to know who is coming in, who is here, and who has a legal right to stay. Chaos helps nobody. Not citizens. Not employers. Not local communities. And certainly not the people risking everything to come here.
But the answer is not to scream “invasion” every time politicians need a scapegoat.
The real problem is not that America has too many immigrants. The real problem is that we have built an immigration system designed to fail. We do not fund enough judges, enough case workers, enough processing capacity, enough legal pathways, or enough common sense. Then politicians point to the backlog and pretend the dysfunction is proof that immigration itself is the problem.
It isn’t.
Our economy depends on immigrant labor, whether some people want to admit it or not. Farmers know it. Roofers know it. Construction crews know it. Warehouses know it. Manufacturers know it. Tech firms know it too, even as they game the H-1B system for their own benefit. We should stop pretending that entire sectors of the economy are not being held together by people who came here looking for work, safety, and a future.
I’ve seen what immigrant communities can do for a city. Dayton is better because of them. Neighborhoods like Old North Dayton were revitalized in part because immigrants saw opportunity where others saw decline. They opened businesses, fixed up properties, raised families, and became neighbors. That is not something to fear. That is something to welcome.
I’ve also strongly supported the Haitian community in Springfield. They became the target of ugly political theater, but the truth is simple: they are working, contributing, and helping keep major employers going. Springfield manufacturing plants depend on them. So do Amazon distribution centers and other employers across the region. The same story repeats all over America. People come here because they want a chance to work and live in peace. We should not turn them into punching bags for cynical politicians. We have built this country as a land of opportunity, and until the Billionaires took over, we were.
And let’s be honest about Central America. A lot of the violence people are fleeing did not appear out of thin air. Drug cartels thrive because Americans keep buying drugs, and because we have failed for decades to treat addiction and mental health as healthcare problems instead of just criminal problems. We helped create the demand. We helped shape the instability. We sell them the guns. So when desperate people show up at our door, we do not get to pretend we had nothing to do with it.
I do not support open borders. I support a functioning system.
That means more immigration judges and faster hearings. It means modernizing the legal immigration process so it does not take forever and cost a fortune. It means real work visas tied to actual labor market needs, with protections against exploitation and wage suppression. It means a path to legal status and citizenship for people who have been here, working, paying taxes, raising families, and contributing to their communities. It means going after employers who exploit undocumented workers while pretending the workers are the problem. And it means treating asylum claims like legal matters to be processed fairly, not campaign props.
And I hate to tell you, unless you are an American Indian, you are an illegal alien too. They were here first.
America’s population growth is slowing. Our birth rate is down. Communities are aging. We need workers, entrepreneurs, tradespeople, caregivers, and builders. Immigration, done right, is not a burden. It is one of the few real competitive advantages this country still has.
I’m running for Congress because I’m tired of policies built around slogans instead of solutions. Immigration is one more place where both parties have preferred outrage over fixing what is broken.
I want border policy that is real.
I want legal immigration that is easier, faster, and fairer.
I want citizenship to be something people can earn.
And I want an America confident enough to remember that immigrants are not the end of our story.
They have always been part of it.