We got here because no one is willing to tell the whole truth about the immigration mess.

The truth is that undocumented immigrants with families, for whom the full amnesty crowd so loudly cries, put themselves in their insecure position. Their predicament is one of their own creation. Though individual people have sympathetic stories, sympathy is not a proper measure for an executive order or for the passing of any law.

Whining that the Republicans have derailed immigration reform is not a basis for unilateral action either. And calling people racists, as the New York Times does to those who object to the executive order or the bogus corporate-giveaway Gang of Eight bill, saying they "embody the country's old strains of nativism," does not help the country.

Americans can be very pro-immigrant and pro-law and justice at the same time. Those of us who demand respect for our laws know that law and order ultimately protect and respect immigrants because lawlessness exacerbates the plight of immigrants as it emboldens traffickers, coyotes and so many other unsavory characters ready to pounce when they see that America's president and Congress are not serious about upholding our own laws.

Our demand for the rule of law and fundamental justice makes us not nativists; it makes us Americans.

The Gang of Eight bill was and is a terrible bill. It allows legalization of people who have up to two criminal misdemeanors. It is enough to ask the American people to forgive the transgressions of an illegal crossing or a visa overstay; it is beyond acceptable that we allow those with any criminal convictions to legalize.

The bill has no serious fines for exploitative employers, its increased fees cut out small businesses from the process, and its path to citizenship sets a terrible precedent of zero penalty for a violation of our laws that will only encourage future illegal immigration and continue the never-ending cycle of chaos.

President Obama and Congress can both honor our rich history as a nation of immigrants and ensure the security of borders and the sovereignty of our laws.

Here is what real reform looks like: n Serious fines on employers exploiting immigrants. n Increased border and port security.
n Path to legalization, not citizenship.
n Repeal and replace the 10-year bar to re-entry with a two-four year bar.
n Create an Essential Worker Visa similar to the current seasonal-worker visa.

A comprehensive bill will lead to failure again. Let's learn from history. Pass border security and fines on employers first. Then pass a clean legalization bill that takes citizenship off the table. Finally, pass a reform bill that creates an essential-worker visa and fixes the inefficiencies in the business and family visa categories.

If the president, Republicans and Democrats are truly serious about implementing a workable immigration system, they will take the time to get it right and leave border politics at the negotiating-room door.

Obama honored those requests in a nationwide speech Thursday night.

Such action is a terrible idea and the arguments amnesty activists use to support it are emotional, not rational. If rationality prevailed in the contentious area of immigration, no one would seriously argue for unilateral executive action to legalize a large number of people who have broken our laws. Respect for the law must come first.

How did we get to the point where people who have broken the law are in a position to demand anything from the America?

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was a direct cause of the chaos at the border we saw this past summer. Amnesty activists want everyone to believe that the sole cause of the border surge was violence in Central America. They are hiding the truth. I have represented immigrants for the past 18 years, including women and children from those countries. It has been hideously violent, especially for girls, for the past two decades. But the number of border crossings did not hit an all-time high until after DACA because illegal immigration operates through rumor and false hope. And no amount of punditry that Obama's executive action will only affect immigrants in the U.S. will change the chaos and disorder at the southern border. In fact, it will ignite a new, larger wave of illegal immigration.

But even if not one single additional illegal crossing resulted from this order, it would still be wrong on the merits. Amnesty activists argue that many of the 5 million have been here more than 10 years here anyhow, so we should just legalize them? That argument is disrespectful of the law. Since when do we reward people because they managed to outrun the law for a certain period of time?

President Obama should consider the millions of people who have followed the legal process and waited outside our borders for the green card numbers to come up. Some have died, been separated from loved ones, and endured many hardships. Where is the fairness and justice for them?

As a country, if our chief executive usurps the rule of law for the people who broke the law, our message to the people who obeyed the law is this -- you are dupes. And this message will only encourage more disrespect for our sovereign laws.

Another argument from the activists is that the president must act because deportation is tearing families apart. Consider for a moment who put these families in their current situation: no one forced undocumenteds to start families.

President Obama must do the right thing and allow immigration to go through the legislative process. He will make a powerful statement to the world that our laws must be respected, and he will show true leadership by putting what is good for America ahead of the wants of his party and special interests.

That Obama has chosen to ignore U.S. law tells foreigners that we are a nation to be disrespected.

DHS also failed to interact/communicate with other government agencies that could have provided information that would have stopped the bombers. While some in the media have correctly criticized the FBI’s ignoring of intel from Russia about the bombing brothers, there has been no media examination of the failures of Homeland Security. We must look long and hard at these failures because we must be sure that our elected representatives and the agencies they oversee are seeking correctives that will protect us and are not blithely, and with disrespect to the victims and the survivors, avoiding such examination and trying to pass it off to the American people as “terrorism happens.”

Furthermore, before we as a country dive into comprehensive immigration reform, we, the people, must demand that the parts of the immigration law that are good be retained and strictly enforced. One part of the current immigration system that makes perfect sense is the rule that once the U.S. grants refuge to a person in the form of asylum, that person is not permitted to travel back to the country that he claimed persecuted him. The Immigration and Nationality Act clearly spells out that the attorney general may terminate asylum status if a person returns to his home country. Furthermore, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) fact sheet, “Traveling outside the United States as an Asylum Applicant, an Asylee, or a Lawful Permanent Resident Who Obtained Such Status Based on Asylum” also definitively spells it out. Our government (and especially DHS), should pay attention to and enforce existing clearly defined laws and policies.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled back to his home country of Dagestan and stayed there for six months even though he and his family sought refuge here in our country from alleged persecution there. A person who is afraid of death or torture in his homeland does not return to his homeland; if he does, the system is set up to raise a red flag. When he re-entered the U.S. on July 17, 2012, and presented himself to Customs and Border Protection officials at JFK as he would have had to do, the computer system should have had a record of his travel back to Dagestan. As soon as the customs officer saw that he traveled back to his country of alleged persecution, Tsarnaev should have been pulled immediately from the line and put into at least secondary inspection and probably deferred inspection. CBP could have detained him, contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and then ICE could have issued a “notice to appear,” which is the document used to put someone into deportation proceedings. Our laws would have even given him the chance to explain why he should not be deported. Was this information in the CBP system as it should have been? Why didn’t CBP question him? Why hasn’t the media requested these records? Why haven’t journalists asked these questions of CBP?

Now, enforcement of these laws on asylum would have been enough — Tsarnaev would have been detained at the very least and possibly deported. But, even more disturbing is that there is another set of immigration laws regarding green cards that was also completely ignored.

When the U.S. grants permanent residence (the “green card”) to someone, that person has certain obligations that must be fulfilled in order to maintain his/her status. The U.S. government does not just give out green cards and say, “Do whatever you want now.” A green card is a privilege, and if the holder wants to keep it, he/she better follow our laws and rules.

One rule required to keep a green card is that you cannot travel outside the U.S. for lengthy periods of time without prior permission from the U.S. government. If a green card holder is outside of the country for more than 180 days, the holder must establish his intent to remain in the U.S. permanently. CBP, again, could have easily flagged Tamerlan for his lengthy stay outside the U.S. Indeed, I have seen businesspeople and entrepreneurs, with sterling records, questioned for being outside the U.S. for one or two months, not even close to the 180 days. Yet, Tsarnaev goes beyond the 180 days outside the country and is untouched. Some in the media have written about CBP’s failure to flag Tsarnaev because he was in the FBI database, and indeed, that is a terrifying failure. Yet, it is more terrifying that the seemingly mundane day-to-day rules of DHS that serve the purpose of keeping our borders secure were just flat-out ignored. If someone is a green card holder and applied to be a permanent resident in our country, DHS has the absolute right to question when they return after leaving the U.S. for long periods of time. The fact that there is no media focus on this failure at a time when the media puts on talking head after talking head about immigration reform is very concerning.

A third very good rule is that you can’t go out and commit crimes and keep your green card. The failure to use this rule was, again, a missed opportunity to protect the people of Boston. Tsarnaev was charged with assault and battery in July 2009; why wasn’t he referred to ICE? Even though charges were dismissed, it does not always matter in immigration law — a person may be deportable based on the facts of the arrest. We have enough of our own homegrown batterers in the U.S.; we don’t need to give shelter to those from other countries.

The lesson from all of these failures is that we must demand that our government agencies work for us and that they follow their policies and procedures. If the person is a security risk or has a criminal violation or has violated the immigration rules or has stayed outside of the country for too long, flag them and investigate them. And by all means, if they have done all four, deport them. Most of all do not insult the American people and especially us in Massachusetts and tell us that nothing could have been done to prevent this day of terror.