Conner’s plan for comprehensive immigration reform and a healthy economic future:

1. Secure our borders and ports to ensure we know who and what is entering this country.
2. Create a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. with strict requirements, such as having a clean background check, securing a job, paying fines and all back taxes.
3. Oppose amnesty and immediately deport undocumented immigrants who commit a violent crime or who pose a threat to national security.
4. Ensure passage of the DREAM Act so that young people who grew up in the U.S. can serve in the Armed Forces or pursue higher education – helping us to keep the best and brightest here in America.
5. Advocate for passage of the Arkansas DREAM Act, that would allow undocumented students who graduate from an Arkansas high school to pay in-state tuition.

Immigration has shaped our great nation into what it is today. We have a proud legacy of welcoming people who seek the American Dream; However,  we must fix our broken immigration system, take immediate action to secure our borders and pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

As a prosecutor, Conner saw the immigration system and learned just how broken it is.  The system fails all in our country:  from immigrants that live in fear to families threatened by cartel-driven drugs and violence to victims of human trafficking.

Conner worked to make certain that law enforcement resources were directed where they need to be and led the re-prioritization of immigration crimes to the most serious offenses:  human trafficking, large-scale methamphetamine cases with ties to drug cartels, and felons in the country illegally.

Conner also witnessed the under-reporting of numerous crimes—including domestic violence—in the Hispanic community, in large part because of fear.  These serious problems need to be addressed with reform that secures the border so that we know who and what is coming into our country and provides a pathway to legal status for law-abiding, tax paying immigrants that are already here.

Senator Boozman has repeatedly voted against bi-partisan and common-sense immigration reforms.  Boozman’s extremity even helped derail the “Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act” of 2007 and “The Secure America Act” of 2005.  Both pieces of  legislation were sponsored by Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy crafted by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and advocated for by President George W. Bush.

It’s time to put aside party rhetoric and find common ground to address this crisis head on.