Candidate Responses
"This bill enhances our control ove the border, allowing us to better deal with future illegal immigrants as well as drug traffickers and potential terrorists," he said in a statement after the vote.
"A comprehensive solution to our immigration crisis must include strengthening our borders," she said in a statement in mid-2007.
"I accept the basic idea of better border security you need to be talking with (Mexico) to get cooperation, border security can't be on just one side of the fence," he said in an interview with the Des Moines Register.
"The first step is to control our borders and stop illegal trafficking. At the same time, it is unrealistic to think that we can deport more than 12 million people," he said on his campaign web site
"So we need a fence. We need a technological fence; we need a tamper-proof ID card," he said during a presidential debate
"Our nation's borders should not be fenced nor should they be militarized," he said during an interview with NH Insider.
"I think that this has to be the very first step that the president takes, is secure the borders, physically or electronically so that you stop this porous situation where people come across at will," he said in an interview with the Des Moines Register.
A sponsor of legislation authorizing construction of the Mexico border fence
"Border security is a job for state and local authorities, not soldiers or vigilantes," he said on his campaign web site.
During a Republican presidential debate, McCain said, "One thing we would all agree on, the status quo is not acceptable. We have to secure our borders."
