Those on the left tell horror stories about children being ripped from the arms of their parents and tossed over the Rio Grande by hobnail boot-wearing government secret police, as well as those on the right taking an incidence of a horrific crime being committed by someone in the country without permission to live here and promoting the act as if it was typical of all immigrants.

Neither version is anywhere near the truth, but both sides will cling to it as though it came down written in stone by the finger of God.    Whole cities are lining up to fight the government to provide safe haven for all immigrants, no matter their legal status or their conduct upon arriving on our shores.  Other want the US to build walls, real and virtual, to prevent any immigrants from crossing our borders, legally or illegally.

Lost in all the sensationalism is the actual truth, and it is not that hard to see.  We need to know who is coming into our country to keep Americans safe.  Almost every other country in the world has similar restrictions, and it is unrealistic to believe the US can ignore world-wide terrorism by opening its borders completely.

There should be an easy, fast, and inexpensive way for those outside our borders to immigrate to the US, if they are actually wanting to come here to better themselves and provide for their families, to either become citizens, or the participate in the work force of the US as guest workers.  The government should not provide taxpayer-funded benefits to those who are not seeking to be a part of the work force, and we should prepare guidelines that provide for individual hardship cases that should arise in that regard.

Those who enter the US and commit crimes against the nation or its inhabitants, or against other immigrants, should be dealt with and incarcerated.  Simply deporting them will not work unless we can secure our borders well enough to keep them from re-entering, something that we are currently unable to do.

The time has come for both sides to put down the thesaurus and start acting to provide for orderly and legal immigration, for the safety of our citizens as well as providing a path to welcome others to the nation.  Far too much conversation has accomplished exactly zero.