A Utah native who served in the Clinton administration urged passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill that brings the nation's illegal population out of the shadows.

"We must change the culture of illegality that shrouds those who came to America for a better life," Mickey Ibarra said.

Ibarra, the former White House director of intergovernmental affairs, spoke Tuesday at the University of Utah Hinckley Institute of Politics. He currently runs a government relations firm in Washington, D.C.

The challenge with immigration reform, he said, is to secure the nation's borders and keep the economy viable while holding to long-standing American values of compassion, opportunity and tolerance.

"We do need to ensure our borders are secure. I'm not saying a 700-mile wall is the way to go. I think it's very short-sighted of us to think we can wall our way out of this problem," he said.

Ibarra took Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch to task for opposing the sweeping reform bill the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Monday. The legislation would allow illegal immigrants with jobs to remain in the country and work their way to citizenship. It would require registration, a background check, proof of employment, paying taxes and a fine.

Noting Hatch's support of the Dream Act and an agricultural jobs bill, Ibarra said, "I gotta believe Sen. Hatch knows what the right thing is to do."

Hatch said regardless of the approach, granting citizenship to illegal immigrants is amnesty. They shouldn't get an edge over thousands of people who play by the rules and have been waiting in line to come to the United States.

"There is a difference between earned legality and amnesty," Ibarra said.

GOP efforts to criminalize and deport undocumented workers, even those with families and jobs, are unacceptable, Ibarra said. His own father came into the United States from Mexico as a 15-year-old bracero, or migrant farmer worker.

"The reality is, America is not only addicted to oil but to cheap labor as well," he said.

Ibarra said there is a "level of racism that none of us like to talk about" underscoring the illegal immigration debate. But, he said, the Latino agenda is America's agenda, and politicians are taking notice.

"The Latino community is becoming mainstream very fast," Ibarra said. "I think that bodes well for our nation."

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