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Jilka visits Mexico, Arizona to study immigration issue firsthand
Published 8/3/2010 in Local News
By SHAJIA AHMAD
In a region where Republican primaries often decide elections, Democrats don't often have to fight to get their names on the ballot.
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Brad Nading/Telegram Alan Jilka talks with area residents in June at Stevens Park during the Beef Empire Days Chuckwagon Breakfast.
But they do have to fight for the confidence of voters.
Former three-term Salina mayor Alan Jilka is running unopposed in today's Democratic primary and will face the winner of the GOP primary featuring six candidates in November's general election. They're all seeking the first congressional district seat left open by Jerry Moran, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat.
Jilka, a fourth-generation Kansan, self-described "pro-life" candidate, and who says he gives "full support of Second Amendment rights," returned at the end of last week from a four-day trip to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Jilka said he made the recent trip as part of his quest to learn firsthand the border security challenges facing state and local officials. He acknowledged that the issues of immigration and border security are incredibly complex and have "tremendous implications on America's economic future and national security."
"All seven of us are calling for increased border security," he said about the candidates in the first district. "Securing our border has to be done before people are willing to talk about immigration reform."
Jilka visited the site where on July 15, a Sinaloa drug gang lured federal law enforcement officers to a street in downtown Juarez, Mexico, and detonated a car bomb, killing three police officers and injuring 11 bystanders, he said.
Jilka said Juarez, which lies just across the American border from El Paso, Texas, is rife with violence, unlike El Paso.
"The citizens of Juarez are terrified. It is heartbreaking to hear a child tell you how frightened they are to walk to school each day," Jilka said. "The border is a war zone."
Jilka said he also met with representatives from the office of Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and El Paso Mayor John Cook. Jilka said that Cook told him that although El Paso has received more than 30,000 refugees from Juarez in the last two years, it remains one of the safest cities in America with just one reported murder. Juarez last year reported more than 3,000 murders, according to Jilka.
Jilka said he also traveled to Arizona to meet with Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup, Nogales, Ariz., Chief of Police Jeffrey Kirkham, and with representatives from the congressional district offices in Arizona that border Mexico.
Jilka said Arizona officials felt compelled to support SB 1070 — the anti-illegal immigration law currently under a federal appeals process after certain provisions of the controversial legislation were struck down by a federal district court judge — because of the escalating violence in the region and in an attempt to force federal officials to act on comprehensive immigration reform.
"The Arizona officials will tell you that their state economy is dependent upon immigrant labor, but that we cannot let the drug war spill over the border," Jilka said. "Our country needs immigrant labor. The mayor of El Paso told me that he didn't raise his children to pluck chickens, but chickens need plucking and people need work to feed their families. It reminded me to appreciate and respect the dignity of all labor."
Jilka said if elected he would advocate for securing the border with more border patrol agents and technology; for punishing employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens; establishing an earned citizenship program where illegal aliens must learn English, pay back taxes and a fine for entering the country illegally and pass a criminal background check; and working with the Mexican government to elevate the economic conditions of their people, millions of whom live on less than $2 per day.
Jilka was elected to the Salina County Commission in 1997 and served for a dozen years. His grandfather grew wheat until he opened Jilka Furniture in downtown Salina in 1923, and it still is a family business today.
The Democratic candidate is kicking off the general election campaign tomorrow with a four-city "Let's Make it Right" tour, with stops in Salina, Hays, Great Bend and Hutchinson.
The one constant concern of voters on the campaign trail, Jilka said, has been their consternation over federal spending and the nation's growing deficit, now just more than $13 trillion.
"I've been on the (Salina) city commission for 12 years, and we've never deficit spent," he said. "My hope is that all citizens will examine my positions on the issues and not stereotype me."
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