Last night Senator Barack Obama fielded a question in the debate about immigration. He gave a balanced “we need to enforce the border while respecting and dealing with those who have come here” response that didn’t seem to be entirely what the crowd or Bill Richardson who was standing next to him, wanted but what is probably needed.

I looked into Obama’s thoughts on illegal immigration some more and found his 2006 Floor Speech in the Senate:

The American people are a welcoming and generous people. But those who enter our country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of the immigration laws.

Obama supported:

“But while security might start at our borders, it doesn’t end there. Millions of undocumented immigrants live and work here without our knowing their identity or their background. We need to strike a workable bargain with them. They have to acknowledge that breaking our immigration laws was wrong. They must pay a penalty, and abide by all of our laws going forward. They must earn the right to stay over a 6-year period, and then they must wait another 5 years as legal permanent residents before they become citizens.”

“But in exchange for accepting those penalties, we must allow undocumented immigrants to come out of the shadows and step on a path toward full participation in our society. In fact, I will not support any bill that does not provide this earned path to citizenship for the undocumented population–not just for humanitarian reasons; not just because these people, having broken the law, did so for the best of motives, to try and provide a better life for their children and their grandchildren; but also because this is the only practical way we can get a handle on the population that is within our borders right now.”

The left doesn’t want to hear about limitations any more than the right wants to hear about amnesty and I always applaud and respect when people go to a house where everyone opposes you and say what they don’t want to hear. (When its sensible of course.)