On Borders & Immigration

Borders and Immigration

Republicans want a secure border to stop illegal trafficking in drugs, people, and weapons. Reasonable Democrats want this too. Democrats also want a fair and judicious immigration system, as do many Republicans. The reason our country has gone decades without any meaningful progress on this important issue is simple: neither party actually wants to make progress, because at the end of the day both parties believe they benefit more from leaving the issue unsolved. They want to keep campaigning on this problem forever and believe they can win more votes from promising to solve the problem than from actually solving it. Part of the problem is that border security and immigration policy are actually two completely separate issues - but both parties function like they’re two sides of the same coin. We saw this most recently in 2024 when a bipartisan border bill was killed twice. Republican Senator Lankford from Oklahoma, who negotiated the bill, said his own colleagues had told him “if I can’t get everything, I want nothing”, and when Democrats brought it back again months later for another vote, he called that one “a prop” and a political messaging exercise.

Strong Borders

Countries have borders for good reasons. Control over those borders is essential: we can’t protect our people when drugs and weapons can be smuggled across the borders at will. A secure border is therefore non-negotiable. A nation is safe only when it knows and controls who and what enters its territory. Securing our land borders and more than 300 international air, land, and sea ports is the responsibility of Customs and Border Protection, and while Border Patrol is now at 21,471 agents, the highest in its 102-year history, that is still a small force for the ground we’re asking it to cover. These hardworking Americans are dedicated to keeping our country safe, but they are also overstretched. While part of this problem can and should be solved by giving them the best equipment possible to help them do their jobs, the fact remains that we need more of them. President Trump is absolutely right to seek an expansion to 25,000 agents - we can’t secure our country without them. We might need even more than that, but this is a good start. Both parties have proven that they can’t be trusted with national security. As an independent and a veteran, national security is my highest priority.

ICE

Border security does not end at the border. Whether people have crossed the border illegally or overstayed their visa, we need an immigration enforcement system inside our country that is effective, targeted, and worthy of public trust. ICE was created to fill this role, but the agency has overstepped its bounds and is acting as a tool of weaponized government rather than the trustworthy law enforcement agency the American people deserve.

Over the last two years ICE has acted less like an immigration enforcement agency and more like a general-purpose federal police force, too often harassing and injuring protesters and American citizens over whom it has no authority. It has become routine for these federal agents to wear masks and refuse to identify themselves to the public. This is the government Ronald Reagan - and our Founders - warned us about. Widespread abuse by any federal law enforcement agency undermines the public’s trust in all levels of law enforcement and makes it harder for other officers and agencies to do their jobs effectively.

To start, the masks must come off. Every agent interacting with the public should have a visible face and badge number. Trust between law enforcement and the American people depends on accountability. When officers hide behind a mask, that trust is broken. ICE agents wearing body cameras is a step in the right direction and I applaud every effort to roll out this program as quickly as possible. Next, and equally important, ICE must end its use of administrative warrants. Unlike judicial warrants, these do not require a judge’s approval, bypassing a critical Constitutional safeguard designed to protect individual liberty. The United States is a nation of laws founded on the protections of civil liberties. Independent judicial oversight is one of the most important safeguards against the government abusing its power, and immigration enforcement cannot be exempt from it.

Immigration Reform

While the enforcement of our laws and our border must be steadfast, we can’t ignore how legal immigration has contributed to the growth and greatness of America. Idaho ranks dead last in the country for doctors per capita, and one of the things our own legislature did about it was open a licensing pathway for physicians who trained overseas, because a rural hospital that can’t find a doctor at all has a bigger problem than where a qualified doctor happened to train. Non-citizens have also served in our country’s military since the Revolution, and more than 148,000 have earned their citizenship in uniform since 2002, including some who served in my platoon and proved themselves every bit as capable, committed, and patriotic as any American-born soldier.

Our current system, however, is a mess. It is woefully outdated, slow to the point of being unusable, at times arbitrary, and badly in need of reform. In other words, it is unsustainable. So the next question I ask is why haven’t we fixed it? The answer is similar to most issues plaguing our nation: partisanship. Both parties want to use immigration to win elections. Whether it is fearmongering about illegal immigrants or looking to open our borders on humanitarian grounds, the claims turn out voters on both the right and the left. This perverse incentive reduces the desire to actually work on the problem.

We cannot have unregulated immigration, but we also must recognize where our economy has a real need for workers in sectors like agriculture. Immigration should never take a job from an Idahoan or drive down Idaho wages. Idaho workers must always come first. Existing law already requires producers to hire any qualified American who applies, right through the midpoint of the contract, and to pay a wage floor the federal government sets for the specific purpose of keeping foreign labor from undercutting American wages. Despite offering good jobs for good money, our ranchers, farmers, and dairymen cannot find enough American workers to meet their needs. If not enough Americans are willing to do this work, we need a good guest worker system to guarantee Idaho’s agricultural sector the workforce it needs.

In this vein, Congressman Simpson has spent twenty years working with Idaho’s dairy industry on exactly this problem, and the bill he’s cosponsoring, the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act (SAWA), would open the H-2A program to year-round operations like dairies and extend contracts to almost a full year. It would also let farmworkers who have been doing this job for years apply for that same visa, after a background check. SAWA is a work permit, not citizenship. I’d rather have a workforce we’ve actually vetted than pretend we aren’t aware of who is actually doing the work. This is what legal immigration should look like: a controlled and targeted system that fills proven workforce shortages without undercutting American workers.

My Record

I also want to address an attack I expect from my opponent, Jim Risch, over my opposition to Idaho’s immigration bill during my time in the 2025 legislative session. I did not oppose the bill because I disagreed with its goal. I opposed it because it was unconstitutional. Immigration is a federal responsibility, and states cannot write their own immigration laws because they don’t like what is happening federally. Just as federal power should NEVER encroach on states’ rights, neither should the state overstep its own Constitutional bounds. Our founding fathers separated state and federal powers for a reason and I will always fight to maintain that balance. As your senator, I will never vote for legislation that violates the Constitution, nor will I support redundant laws that add another layer of government without solving any problems.

We Can Have Both

Immigration and border security are complicated issues that rightfully concern most Americans. The fact of the matter is that we can have both the secure border that cracks down on all forms of trafficking that conservatives want, and the firm, accountable immigration enforcement that our economy needs and our national character demands. Too often, the debate is treated as an all-or-nothing choice between two partisan sides when the right answer requires balancing principles from both sides. We need a secure border and strong enforcement of our immigration laws, but carrying out those laws must also be humane and consistent with American values. At the same time, securing the border does not mean closing America off to legal immigration. We are a nation built by generations of immigrants, and legal immigration continues to strengthen our economy and our communities. When you send me to Washington, I will work to bring both sides together and build an immigration system that secures our border, enforces our laws, and works for the American people.

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Paid for by Todd Achilles for Idaho / J. Patrick Riceci, Treasurer. Copyright (C) 2026 Achilles for Idaho. All rights reserved.

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