California needs immigrants. Our high-tech sector is dominated by engineers and entrepreneurs who were not born in America. Our farms are worked by immigrants, some who came here legally, some who did not, but the overwhelming majority of whom add value to our state. If we deported immigrants working in nursing homes and health care facilities, neither would be adequately staffed.

Immigrants are doing well in our schools and universities, whether they arrived with papers or were brought across our border without them, carried in their parents’ arms. The absurdity of deporting immigrants who add value to our state and our country is clearly shown in the practice of deporting those whom we invite to receive advanced degrees at California’s universities—and then we force to leave. Paraphrasing a great California entrepreneur, Scott McNealy, we should staple a green card to every Ph.D. diploma from the UC system.

In 1994, California passed Proposition 187, cutting off all social services to those who entered our country illegally. A federal court struck down Prop. 187, and Governor Davis refused to appeal.

The approach of cutting off social services to immigrants was wrong. The prospect of school-age children idle on the streets of our cities, open to being recruited by gangs instead of getting an education, is unconscionable. So also is the thought of a sick person too afraid to go to a clinic. And if his or her ailment was communicable, all of us would be at risk. The right was wrong on this.

The left is wrong, too. Some on the left, driven by their strong aversion to President Trump, led the state to become a “Sanctuary State.” Even when local law enforcement wants to cooperate, this law prevents California sheriffs from turning over criminals appropriate for deportation unless the federal officials had obtained a court order for each of them. Immigration arrests thus have shifted from safe areas, like county jails, to street arrests, in neighborhoods and homes, where the danger to law enforcement is much greater, and, incidentally, the likelihood of picking up someone else than the intended individual is greater. Some local law enforcement, however, prefer not to send information to the federal immigration authorities as a routine matter, citing their concerns about trust in the local immigrant communities. The decision should be up to the local law enforcement. The current “Sanctuary State” law prohibits such local decision-making.

Also, some on the left say no to any physical barrier at the border. Yet California already has such a physical barrier. If an opponent to any physical barrier is consistent, she or he would tear down the border barrier at San Diego or Calexico. They would also remove the immigration and custom desks at our airports. When returning from out of the country, why not allow individuals to pass directly to ground transportation, rather than waiting in line at customs?

Furthermore, secure borders achieve more than immigration goals. Our nation and our state are experiencing an opioid epidemic; most of those illegal drugs are smuggled across our border. Open borders would give up on cutting off that flow.

The sensible, practical, economically wise, and also compassionate approach is to be found not in the far right or the far left. Here is how an independent, moderate sees the solution. Those who entered our country illegally and broke our laws should be deported. California law enforcement officers should make their own decisions, locality by locality, as to how best to coordinate with federal authorities in doing so. Those who are already in the US, and have not committed any crime other than entering illegally, should be offered full participation in our country as citizens, as of the date the border is secure. The border is not secure simply because more leave California than enter; it is secure when virtually no one enters illegally. A physical barrier is not necessarily required everywhere, but it is absurd to exclude its value in some places. The United States has the right to decide whom we invite to enter our country, and whom we invite to become fellow citizens. Those should be individuals with skills that our country needs; and those who have already started making, or re-making, their lives here.