Solutions offered for immigration

Despite support from both parties, the House of Representatives failed to act on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate. President Obama took common-sense steps to fix our broken immigration system.

1) Our current system has no physical way to equitably address the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the U.S.

2) In some states a majority of the economy depends upon work performed by undocumented immigrants.

3) Our system is broken -- many immigrants have applied more than 10 years ago for citizenship and are still waiting to be legally processed.

4) Most importantly, unless a person is a Native American we all have immigrant roots.

The president's actions will grow the U.S. economy by $90 billion over the next 10 years and protect our families and communities, focusing our law enforcement resources where they should be focused: on felons, not families.

Congress needs to act; but 11 presidents have acted 39 times to address immigration over the past 60 years. President Obama's common-sense steps fit into this long history.

Please urge your congressional, elected officials, especially Rep. Jason Smith and Sen. Roy Blunt, to put forth some real solutions for equitable, swift opportunity for qualified immigrants to become legal U.S. citizens. The best solution for everyone involved would be for our federal officials to accept the temporary action of the president to address this overbearing problem in the short run and to offer some real legislative solutions to our very broken immigrant system.

DENIS RIGDON, Cape Girardeau