The solution to our illegal immigration problem is to have common sense immigration laws and enforce them. America does neither.

To find the solution to the problem, you have to first understand the root of the problem. Why do we have over 10 million illegal immigrants here? There are many reasons, but what sums them all up is this: we incentivize it. These incentives need to be removed, and most of them are removed if we follow these ten points to solve our problem with illegal immigration:

1) Protect our borders. You just have to turn your TV on to see live footage of illegal immigrants crossing our borders to see that we don’t control our borders. And if you don’t control your borders, then no other parts of the policy you try to put in place will make much of a difference. “You can just walk right in” isn’t a way to keep people out. As a side note, it’s not just people seeking a better life that cross the border – terrorists do so as well.

2) No more Amnesty bills. We’ve had multiple, including the Obama Administration’s most recent DREAM Act prosecutorial discretion. Amnesty bills tell those people outside America that want to come here “if you can sneak in and hide long enough, we’ll let you stay for good.” We provided amnesty to less than 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986 and we now have over 12 million. Would repeating the same mistake solve our problem? No – unless your problem is that you’re a politician that needs to buy more votes by promising one group of people goodies.

3) No more free healthcare. You can come to America and get the greatest health care in the world – free. Speak to nurses working in hospitals near the border and you will hear countless stories of this happening. Hospitals all over America have shut their doors because of unpaid bills by illegal immigrants. Yet, we continue to provide free health care services to them. To make things worse, programs like Medicaid expand all the time. Initially, an illegal immigrant giving birth was considered an “emergency situation” and thus would receive free delivery of the baby. That policy has now expanded to call a pregnancy an “emergency situation” which means that pregnant illegal immigrants get free doctor visits, prenatal vitamins and every thing else that goes along with being a pregnant woman in America –all at zero cost to them.

4) Stop pushing the DREAM Act.  Providing illegals with more ways to be able to stay in America only incentivizes more to come here. As for those beating the drums of “they served in our armed forces, we shouldn’t deport them,” a law we have on our books already does this – 8 U.S.C. § 1440. This portion of the DREAM Act is just a political lie to get more people to support it.

5) Stop providing in-state tuition for illegals. Telling people in other countries “if you come to America and can hide in a state long enough, we’ll give you huge discounts on a college education” is hardly a deterrent. Much like credit card companies touting the benefits of being a cardholder, this is a benefit of being in America illegally.

6) Stop providing free education. Ever since the Supreme Court’s Plyler v Doe decision, the federal government has forced local school districts to provide free education to illegal immigrant children. “Come to America, we’ll educate your children at no direct cost to you” is also a great reason for people all over the world to flock here. Do you think families outside of the U.S. would be less likely to come here if their children wouldn’t be allowed into our public school system?

7) End sanctuary cities. “Come to our city, we won’t enforce the law you just broke” isn’t a way to reduce the number of people violating that law.

8) End birthright citizenship. Only a fool would believe in a policy that says “you can’t come here, but if you break our immigration laws and do come here, and while here have a child, we’ll give that child citizenship.” Parents want to provide a better life for their children than they had. Since America is the most prosperous country in the world (we’ll see how long that lasts) it only makes sense for a parent to come here illegally to give their child the amazing gift of American citizenship. Then this becomes a gift to themselves as well and the anchor-baby problem only gets worse.

9) Require proof of citizenship to obtain means-tested welfare programs. Just look at Obama’s aunt – here illegally for years, yet living on the dole. “Don’t come here, but if you do, we’ll give you free food, spending money which can be used at casinos and nudie bars and we’ll even subsidize your housing” isn’t a way to keep people out of the country.

10) Deport all illegals that are caught. This doesn’t mean go on a witch-hunt for all illegal immigrants. But, if you detain one – don’t just let them go as the Obama Administration is doing. “Catch & release” may be appropriate for sport fishing, but isn’t appropriate when it comes to immigration policy. Following the logic of the argument that we “can’t round up every one of them” would mean that we shouldn’t enforce any of our laws. We know for a fact that there are thieves, tax cheats, burglars, spousal abusers, rapists, murderers and child molesters walking our streets because we can’t catch every one of them. But does that mean we shouldn’t prosecute the ones that are caught? Only a fool would make such an argument.

Again, if we continue to provide these incentives while at the same time not protecting our borders, it is impossible to solve our illegal immigration problem. The system isn’t “broken” because it’s never been implemented.