Senate Republicans formally put aside a broad immigration overhaul sought by President Bush and decided to press ahead with narrower bills to build a 700 mile fence on the Mexico/United States border.  Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said the fence proposal, which the House has passed, was the best alternative if lawmakers wanted to salvage some immigration changes before the Nov. 7 elections.  The fence represents one element of the broad bipartisan measure that the Senate approved in May after President Bush had delivered an address calling for sweeping changes in immigration law. 

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he was worried that Congress might approve the fence but not provide the money to build it.  The Senate had previously added $1.8 billion to a Pentagon spending measure for the fence. 

The fence measure, which may not come to vote in the Senate until next week, is drawing scrutiny from some border-state Republicans who worry that it would impose too many requirements on local governments involving locating the fence.

Personally I am all for this fence.  Skeptics will argue that this is just a waste of taxpayer dollars, because the fences will ultimately be breached and not serve their full purpose.  I would have to disagree with that totally.  Something must be done to secure our borders from illegals entering this country.  A fence would be a great start to securing our borders.

The way it is looking, it won't be long before Congress agrees on the construction of this wall.  Really the only thing in question is how much land do they want to be occupied by this fence.  The House wants one amount and the Senate wants a different.  No doubt that before the session comes to a close, they will both agree and the fence will be constructed.

Once this fence is constructed, what are we to do about all the illegals that already occupy this country.  Here is my proposal and this comes from a realistic stand point instead of an idealistic one.  I propose that since there is hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants already in this country, we should grant them amnesty and allow them a full path to U.S. citizenship.  Yes I said it, we should grant them amnesty.  Lets give them a set time for them to get the proper paper work from the government and allow them to be U.S. citizens with rights just like us.  Now once this set time limit expires, we must enforce our immigration laws with no exceptions.  If an illegal is found, they need to be deported back to their country of origin since we know that they entered after the fence was setup.

In all honesty here, most of these illegal immigrants are peaceful people just trying to live the American way like all of us.  They want to be allowed to make an honest buck to support their family, and we should not disallow them that right.  Lets give them the opportunity to make honest money for their families and put money into our economy.  Give them the same benefits that any other American citizen has as a taxpayer.  If we grant them citizenship, they will be mandated to work jobs that require them to pay social security, Medicare, and Medicaid and by doing this, this will only strengthen the American economy and put money back to abolish our national debt.