It was deeply troubling to see video of U.S. Border Patrol agents firing tear gas Sunday into a crowd of migrants – including women and children – across the border in Mexico in order to prevent them from breaking through the border fence south of San Diego.

Even more troubling, an order signed last week by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly allows members of the military who the president sent to the border to “perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary” to protect Border Patrol agents, including “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention and cursory search.”

Do we really want to see American troops on the border engaging in combat with civilians? Do we really want to see migrants shot and possibly even killed?

DOUG SCHOEN: DEMOCRATS, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

This is deeply troubling not because I am for open borders, nor because I am against border security, nor because the notion of protecting the border from caravans of Central American migrants is inherently wrong.

Rather, I believe that by engaging in a combative manner at the border we run the risk of escalating the conflict and alienating many of our allies in Latin America and beyond if we end up having American troops firing on defenseless civilians.

I am a believer in immigration reform and border security. However, the only way to achieve these things is with comprehensive immigration reform, which is something that Congress can and should do now. Not in the next session of Congress. Now.

Why? Because such reform will ultimately be more difficult to achieve when the Democrats – newly emboldened by their progressive wing – take control of the House in January.

Rest assured, there is a simple and commonsense compromise that can be achieved, though one that is very challenging politically.

This compromise should have three major elements:

A pathway to citizenship for the roughly 12 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally. Many of these people have been in the U.S. for years. They hold jobs that we would be hard-pressed to fill if they were all deported. And many have children who were born here and are American citizens.
·A compromise to allow Dreamers – people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as children – to remain in the U.S. legally. Many of these young people have no memory of their home countries and have little or no ability to speak Spanish or other languages spoken there. They have a great deal to contribute to American society.
Strengthened border security – including building the wall on our southern border that President Trump has been promising to build since he was a presidential candidate. It is not realistic to expect the president will back down from his insistence that the wall be built.

President Trump’s rhetoric lately has not been helpful. He has tweeted several times that he supports an immigration deal with Congress, but his principle and central focus has always been building the border wall.

During his campaign, Trump said repeatedly that Mexico would pay for the wall, but Mexican officials have adamantly refused to do that. So now the president is asking Congress for $5 billion to partially fund construction of the wall – and threatening to force a partial government shutdown at the end of next week if he doesn’t get the money from Congress.

But building a wall alone is not enough. It needs to be coupled with comprehensive immigration reform. And getting Congress to approve such immigration reform will require a broad consensus by Republicans, Democrats and the American people.

The midterm election results – where the Democrats picked up at least 38 House seats and won control of the chamber, while slightly widening their slim Senate majority – proved that President Trump cannot govern with just his very narrow, rural, red coalition.

It simply does not work electorally for the president only to focus on the minority of voters who form his base. The base strategy also does not work substantively. Moreover, by trying to appeal to only his based the president is dividing America and creating the prospect of polarization and division, which we have already been seeing.

Ultimately, what is so troubling to me is the image that we saw this weekend on the border, which suggests the possibility for a conflict that could potentially rage out of control when a solution itself is tantalizingly close to being achieved.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. – who will likely become the next speaker of the House when Democrats become the majority party in the chamber in January – and President Trump have both said they want to work together.

We should build on that now. It is incumbent upon President Trump to call upon Pelosi – along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. – to work with him to strike a compromise deal on immigration.

Indeed, we need to strengthen border security. But Congress and the president should also recognize that we have a moral obligation and responsibility to find a way for those who are here illegally to stay. And we must remove the cloud of uncertainty over the Dreamers, who – through no fault of their own – find themselves in America without citizenship.

I cannot underscore how important I believe reaching a compromise agreement on immigration is to America and to our future.

So far, we have not had any escalation of the conflicts on the border beyond a manageable level. However, the striking images this weekend suggest that things are getting worse, with a number of migrants who have traveled in caravans from Central America storming our border and the problems escalating in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.

Immigrants are not going to stop trying to get into the U.S. illegally as long many face poverty and dangerous conditions in their home countries, and as long as we do not let everyone who wants to come here enter legally (a situation that could lead to a huge influx of many millions of immigrants).

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The only way to reduce the problem and achieve a degree of permanence is a compromise on immigration that will both secure our border and create a pathway to legalization for immigrants already in this country who lack legal status.

America cannot wait and the world cannot wait for Congress and the president to resolve what has turned into an immigration crisis. A compromise solution is right, it is reasonable, it is responsible and it must happen before it is too late.

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