Montana candidates on the issues: immigration 

I support a lawful, humane, expedited immigration system that strengthens border security while expanding legal pathways and protecting due process in a humane way. Congress should modernize asylum law by requiring initial screenings within 7 days, providing government-funded counsel for unaccompanied children, and setting a 30-day goal for final decisions. I would add immigration judges, asylum officers, and support staff, while preserving judicial independence and meaningful appeals.

At the border, I support completing the southern border wall, sustained staffing for Customs and Border Protection, modern inspection technology at ports of entry, mobile surveillance in remote areas, and infrastructure chosen through risk assessments. Enforcement should prioritize smugglers, drug and sex traffickers, repeat offenders, and people who pose verified public-safety threats. We need to put American jobs first; I do not agree with Governor Gianforte’s recent decision to visit India and replace good Montana jobs with HBA 1 Visas. Our Governor has failed Montana and as a future leader of our state, I am highly disappointed in him selling us out.

I would fund these actions through appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security, by consolidating duplicative contracts and increasing visa fees at the expense of those coming into our country to fund our border security, not the taxpayer. Success should be measured publicly through quarterly data: unlawful-crossing attempts, repeat-crossing rates, drug trafficking interdictions at ports, asylum case-processing times, court backlogs, detention costs, visa overstay rates, employment-verification error rates, and the share of legal immigrants filling documented shortages. Independent audits should verify the results and civil-rights compliance.

I’ve had events in every corner of Montana, and I say to the folks in the room, ‘I’m about to make three statements about immigration, and if you agree, raise your hand.’ They are:

1) We must have strong borders and enforce our immigration policies; 2) we must do that without allowing a masked, unaccountable paramilitary force to trample the individual liberties of American citizens and ignoring due process rights; and 3) we need comprehensive immigration reform that makes it clearer how people can come to the United States legally.

In every room, close to everybody has raised their hand. I think if you gave most people in Washington truth serum, they’d raise their hands too.

The problem with our immigration system is not that we don’t know how to solve the problems we face. The problem is we have politicians in DC who know what the solutions are, but choose to use immigration as a partisan issue to fight about instead of an issue that is their responsibility to solve.

As Montana’s Independent senator, I’ll never play politics with our border. I’ll work to empower law enforcement to deport people who came here illegally and committed crimes and to shut down the cartel networks moving fentanyl into Montana towns. I’ll support real, operational control of the border, which means resources for enforcement technology, personnel, and infrastructure that actually prevents illegal crossing. I’ll immediately start working with members of both parties who are serious about comprehensive reform to fix the system so it works for Montana’s ranches, farms, or hospitals. And I’ll fight every day to ensure the due process and constitutional rights for every American citizen are always protected, period.

A secure border and a constitutional country aren’t in conflict. Montanans know that, even when Washington pretends otherwise.

Our immigration system is fundamentally broken, and the fact that we’ve gone decades without comprehensive immigration reform is a failure of leadership from both parties. We need a positive vision for how we fix our immigration system so that it actually helps working people, protects our basic constitutional rights, and makes sure that there is accountability and oversight for immigration agents, just like any other public employee.

I’ll work with people in both parties — just like I’m doing in this campaign with 5 Republican legislators and a former Republican governor’s support — to stop kicking the can down the road and finally pass comprehensive immigration reform. That should include expanding pathways to legal status so that people who want to come to this country in pursuit of the American Dream have a realistic and legal path to doing so and expanding immigration courts and making them independent so claims can be processed in months instead of years.

I’ll also work to restructure and reform immigration enforcement to make sure that it focuses on violent criminals rather than the cruel and chaotic approach that we’ve seen recently. We can make sure that violent criminals aren’t here illegally without putting communities at risk and imperiling the constitutional freedoms that make this country great. That has to include common sense reforms like banning face masks for immigration agents, requiring body cameras and badges, requiring judicial warrants for searches, and ending illegal surveillance that uses our cell phone data without a warrant.

We can still solve big problems as a country. We have to. We do that by cutting through the sort of empty rhetoric of my opponent that leaves us paying more for worse outcomes and coming together as a country around the common sense reforms we can agree on.

As an Independent Congressman, I support an immigration system that secures the border, enforces the law, protects legitimate asylum claims, and provides legal immigration pathways that serve America’s (and Montana’s) economic needs. Do not deport law-abiding ‘Dreamers’.

Secure the border and ports of entry. Fully fund CBP staffing, surveillance technology, drug detection, and targeted physical barriers where they are operationally effective. Prioritize fentanyl, weapons, human trafficking, and national-security threats. Congress should require measurable and independently-audited performance standards. Measured Success: GAO has already identified weaknesses in performance — document improvement and faster approval of legal immigration applicants. Improve training and tighten supervision; hold leaders accountable.

Require employment verification. Phase in mandatory E-Verify nationwide while protecting employers from penalties when they properly use the system. Reduce the economic incentive for unauthorized immigration and protect American workers from unlawful employment practices. Measured Success: Improved compliance with existing regulations and laws.

Fix immigration courts. Hire more immigration judges, court staff, prosecutors, and improve technology to resolve cases quickly and fairly. The immigration-court backlog is exorbitant. Increase utilization of remote hearings to reduce travel and administrative costs. Measured Success:  Reduce backlog, reduce length of incarceration prior to potential deportation. Close private prisons that are not needed.

Strengthen legal immigration. Reform employment-based and temporary-worker visa programs to address documented workforce shortages in agriculture, healthcare, construction, and other industries while requiring worker protections and employer verification. Measured Success: monitor employer participation and sponsorship rates.

Enforce final removal orders. Prioritize those convicted of serious violent crimes, terrorism-related offenses and serious drug offenses, while ensuring due process. Improve CBP-ICE information sharing. Fund this through existing or increased immigration fees, eliminate wasteful detention spending (shorter stays, etc.) and redirect resources where needed.  Measured Success: GAO found gaps in parole monitoring… fix it.  Reduce the number of contracted detention facilities.

The Trump administration’s immigration policy has had one success, which is the creation of a secure border. We need to maintain a secure border. A nation cannot survive when it has porous and open borders. We need to know who is coming in and out of our country. What I would support if elected to Congress is taking border patrol agents and putting them on the borders, not having them roam the streets and cities of the United States of America randomly killing people. We should use a combination of electronic and drone surveillance with increased troop power to make sure that we maintain a well-regulated border. 

Secondarily, we need to deal with the problem of people who have entered this country unlawfully. First, we need to target those persons who are suspected of real criminal offenses, not traffic violations, but real criminal offenses. Those persons need to be targeted and removed. Beyond that, we need to figure out how to deal with people who have entered unlawfully, but who are otherwise law-abiding and contributing to society. I would like Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to make contact with any person who is here unlawfully but who otherwise is not an active criminal threat to the safety of our nation. Those persons should be notified that ICE is aware of them and placed on a probationary status with regular check-ins with appropriate authorities. However, these people should not be detained or removed so long as they remain law-abiding and are contributing to society. 

Finally, we need to have 21st century immigration reform. In 1986, Ronald Reagan passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. This allowed 2.7 million undocumented persons to become US citizens. We need to have a pathway for people who are a part of our American society and are contributing to our economy and our way of life to become full citizens. Congress needs to work out those details in an open and transparent fashion. We need more immigration judges and a more efficient system. We will know that this system is working when we have a handle on people who have come into our country with bad intentions and can stop them while those who are contributing can do so in a lawful way, contributing to our tax base and the economic activity of America. The details of that system must be left up to Congress in consultation with business leaders and members of American society.