6th District candidates acknowledge immigration issue

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Aug 19, 2008 - Page: 8A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Candidates in the 6th U.S. Congressional District race share similar views on how to handle illegal immigrants, favoring the expansion of guest worker programs and stricter enforcement on law-breaking employers.

They just don’t all agree that it is what a congressman should be focusing on right now.

U.S. Rep. Don Cazayoux, D-New Roads, took a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border this weekend to tour border patrol facilities and see how agents monitor the invisible line where hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are caught every year.

Cazayoux faces opposition from state Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, and state Rep. Michael Jackson, No Party-Baton Rouge, in his bid for re-election Nov. 4.

All three candidates said securing the nation’s borders is an important goal, particularly in regard to national security.

Ramiro Cordero, a supervisory border patrol agent in New Mexico, said Monday of the 75,000 illegal immigrants apprehended last year in the section of the border they monitor, 13 percent were found to have a criminal background.

Only about 3.5 percent to 5 percent of illegal immigrants caught are not Mexican, Cordero said.

Unless the border patrol is able to capture and identify who is coming across the border, there would be no way to tell who is walking into the United States, Cazayoux said.

“This certainly gives us much greater control over that process,” he said.

Still, Cazayoux’s opponents said they probably would have not made the trip to the border while people in the district are worried about energy and the economy.

Jackson and Cassidy said the questions they hear from people are about how to diversify spending on fuel and energy alternatives.

“They want to know how you’re going to decrease the price of gas,” Jackson said.

“Sure immigration is an important issue, but right now Republicans in Congress are fighting to expand production of our own resources,” Cassidy said.