McCain: Immigration Is About Security

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that securing the nation's borders is the top goal of an immigration reform measure proposed in Congress that critics have characterized as a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"We have 12 million people. We don't know where they are or what they're doing," McCain said to reporters after speaking to members of the Oklahoma House. "We've got to secure our borders."

McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona, criticized opponents of the reform package including GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who McCain said had flip-flopped on the issue.

"If you oppose this, then what is your proposal? Because the status quo is not acceptable," McCain said. "He criticized our proposal, his criticism which he called pro-amnesty.

"I don't want to be too critical because maybe in a couple of weeks from now he will change his position again, as he's changed from his previous position which was in support of ours," McCain said.

McCain is a co-sponsor of the measure that would meld stronger border security with a guest-worker program and an eventual path to citizenship for many of the 12 million immigrants in the country illegally. Romney has said he opposes the measure because it would allow virtually every illegal immigrant to remain indefinitely.

McCain said he met with Oklahoma lawmakers who supported sweeping state immigration legislation that Gov. Brad Henry signed into law on May 8. Among other things, the measure would deny most public benefits to illegal aliens, target employers who hire illegal aliens and provide protections to citizens and legal immigrants who lose their jobs to illegal immigrants.

"They passed that legislation because they were frustrated, understandably. The federal government did not carry out its responsibilities," McCain said.

He said border control is a federal responsibility. "That means fences, that means walls," McCain said.

On the issue of high fuel prices, McCain said there is little the nation can do to lower prices immediately.

"The only option you can think about is to place a ceiling on gas prices," McCain said. But price ceilings have not worked in the past, he said.

In the long term, increased exploration for domestic energy reserves, including natural gas, will bring energy prices down. "A big reservoir of it is in the state of Oklahoma," he said.

He said the nation also needs to focus on "ethanol of all kinds," including energy extracted from corn, switchgrass and sugar cane.

"Ethanol plants are springing up all over the Midwest," he said.

Conservation will also help bring energy prices down as well as streamlining the process for building nuclear plants, McCain said.

In his speech to the House, McCain promised to hold Cabinet chiefs accountable for ensuring the integrity of their agencies and proposed to withhold money from government programs that don't meet performance expectations.

McCain said his administration would frequently review ethical standards, adhere to "constant, timely and widely available" public disclosure, and give every agency's inspector general direct access to department heads and Cabinet secretaries.

"I'll hold those senior officeholders directly responsible for taking the necessary corrective measures to ensure the integrity of the departments they lead," McCain said.

He also said every agency will be required to issue yearly public progress reports, and programs that do not meet performance goals would not be funded.

"If they're not giving Americans good value for their tax dollars, they're going to have to change or they're going out of business," McCain says.

Following a fundraiser in Tulsa earlier Monday, McCain said setting a timetable for an early U.S. pullout from Iraq would result in genocide and chaos.

"We've made many mistakes in this war, and we are paying a heavy sacrifice for it," he said. "But I am convinced that the American people should be told that the consequences of failure are chaos, genocide and they'll follow us home."

McCain said people are condemning the new strategy in Iraq before the troop surge is fully implemented, noting that the United States does not even have all five troop brigades in place.

"(The Iraqi lawmakers) realize that if we do what the Democrats want and set a date for withdrawal, that's a date for surrender, and they will all be killed probably by al-Qaeda, who will take over that country," McCain said.