The U.S. immigration system has degraded over the last 20 years leading to indiscriminate raids, detention without due process, worker exploitation and families being separated.

Comprehensive immigration reform must be humane, restoring our country's integrity to being both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.

Comprehensive immigration reform is the only plan that will level the playing field in the workplace, reduce undocumented immigration to a smidgen, and reward those who play by the rules.

The necessary components of reform include:

1. Improving the U.S. economy for all workers in the United States.

The agricultural industry needs a large workforce ready, willing, and able to work long and physically demanding days. This requires businesses to be able to plan their strategies around a stable workforce, especially in the hospitality, restaurant, business services, and manufacturing sectors, where we rely on immigrant workers to do these jobs.

Another challenge facing American businesses today is the aging American workforce, the largest wave of retiring Baby Boomers coming in 2011. Even in this tough economy, younger workers will be in higher demand, especially those in manual labor jobs. But with more and more US citizen youth earning high school and college degrees, the trend is making the prospects of adequately filling jobs in certain sectors extremely difficult.

Immigration reform must promote economic opportunity. We must renew our commitment to helping all low-income Americans improve their job prospects and move up the economic ladder. My vision of the Land of Opportunity includes immigrants and citizens working side by side, having the same labor protections, access to programs and services, due process, and faith in a system that works for them and their families.

2. Creating a legalization program allowing undocumented immigrants in the U. S.

This program would include those currently in removal proceedings, to regularize their status. It also includes an accelerated path to legal status and eventual citizenship for undocumented students (DREAM Act). Undocumented farm workers should be allowed to legalize their status through the AgJOBS Act.

3. Reforming visa programs

These programs would keep families together, protecting workers' rights, and ensuring that future immigration is regulated and controlled rather than illegal and chaotic; immigration policies must make family reunification a top priority.

Reform should revise family preference categories and per-country caps, expedite the processing of visa applications caught up in lengthy visa backlogs, and remove bars to reentry and adjustment of status for those seeking to reunite with family. Family visas should not be placed in competition with employment visas.

4. Implementing smart, effective enforcement measures targeted at the worst violators of immigration and labor laws.

Immigration policy must require undocumented immigrants to get right with the law, register with the government, go through government background security checks, pay an appropriate fine, pay taxes, and study English. Undocumented immigrants who satisfy those requirements must be permitted to apply for lawful permanent status leading to citizenship.

This screening process will separate ordinary immigrants who have come seeking opportunities to better their lives from those who may be exploiting opportunities a broken system provides to those who may be coming to do us harm.

Enforcement resources can then be trained on employers who flaunt labor laws and exploit undocumented immigrants, on smugglers who traffic in drugs and guns who are creating chaos on the border, and on violent individuals inside the country who may pose a threat to public safety.

The Department of Homeland Security should formalize a national strategy for effective and accountable border security as well as develop a comprehensive plan for the systematic use of surveillance technology for all U.S. land and maritime borders.

5. Prioritizing immigrant integration into our communities and country.

The U.S. immigration system should ensure that communities are able to welcome immigrants by providing federal support to state and local governments and organizations to provide multi-lingual and civics education, outreach, and naturalization assistance. The immigration system should also ensure that all immigrants, regardless of status, have access to social services such as health care.

6. Respecting the due process rights of all in the United States.

All persons, regardless of immigration status, should be afforded due process protection, including the end of mandatory detention and expedited removal, access to legal counsel and law libraries, independent judicial review of individual circumstances before removal, and the ability to challenge detention before an independent judicial body in a timely manner. Detention policies should be reformed to uphold human and civil rights. Binding detention standards should also be developed to ensure access to basic rights, such as adequate access to health care, protection from unnecessary restraints and arbitrary transfer, and access to telephones.