In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama told Congress it’s time to “fix our broken immigration system.”

While I agree that immigration needs to be addressed, the solutions being proposed – which all include some form of amnesty – will not solve the problem, but will actually perpetuate it. Here, instead, are two common-sense solutions that liberals and conservatives can both agree would be a good place to start.

n First, we need to establish real control over our borders. By not having adequate controls on our borders, we are being complicit in the deaths of thousands of illegal immigrants every year. We need to build fences. Build additional border crossings and man them with additional Border Patrol agents.

n Second, we must enforce our laws in the workplace. E-Verify needs to be mandatory, and should be applied to all, including non-employee contract laborers. This would effectively remove the “jobs magnet.”

These two measures, if fully implemented, would be a great start to solving America’s problems with illegal immigration, but to fully implement them, Americans need to let our leaders know that this is what we demand of them.

Amnesty is not the answer and will not solve the problem. If the illegal immigrants flagrantly disregarded our laws to come here, what makes lawmakers think that they will suddenly become law-abiding potential citizens?

Millions, if not billions, of people from all over the world want to come to America. Those who want to share in our freedom and do everything legally must not be cheated out of the opportunity because we have too many illegal immigrants here.

Edward Richardson

Berwick