The tragic explosion occurring April 15, 2013 in Boston killed 3 and injured 176. The main suspects are two brothers from the Russian Republic of Chechnya. These men were 9 and 16 years old when they came to the United States with their father who was granted asylum because of conflicts in their homeland.

Congratulations to Homeland Security for finding the suspects so quickly, but the United States has its work cut out for it. This tragedy will also stir up drama in the White House.

Congress has been crafting an immigration reform bill, and this terrorist attack allegedly committed by immigrants will not ease tension in the immigration debate. Many Republicans in Congress are skeptical of the reform bill, which is already aiming at tightening down on border security.

Even though the argument is plausible, it does not hold a lot of weight. Just because someone is not born in the United States does not mean they are more likely to be a criminal or terrorist.

Although some countries are considered to be more violent than others, that does not mean that the people coming here are criminals. We have strong enough border security and restrictions on immigration already.

Our problem does not lie outside our borders, but within them. In the past 12 months, we have seen several massacres, all done by U.S. citizens born and raised. On July 20, 2012, Aurora, Colo. was shocked by a movie theater shooting, which killed 12 and wounded 58. December 11, 2012, in Portland, Ore., near my hometown, Jacob Tyler Roberts shot two and wounded one at Clackamas Town Center mall before taking his own life, then the tragic Sandy Hook shooting on December 14, 2012 was committed by U.S.-born Adam Lanza. The list goes on. The point is that there have been countless acts of violence committed in the United States not only in the past 12 months but since the turn of the millenium as well. These acts of violence are prominently committed by U.S.-born citizens.

Though most acts of terrorism are committed by U.S.-born citizens, crime rates among illegal immigrants tend to be high.

In 2009, non-U.S.-born citizens made up 57 percent of the 76 fugitives on the FBI’s most wanted list. This is a startlingly high number considering the illegal immigrant population is only about 9 percent of the U.S. population.

My observations and research have caused me to change stance a little bit on immigration reform. Although I still favor immigration reform, I am no longer in favor of completely open borders. I believe the United States should allow more immigrants to come into the country because the majority of immigrants are hard-working, humble individuals.

I worked with a couple of illegal immigrants from Mexico when I was 16 years old. These workers became my friends, and they were better than any of the other men I ever worked with in construction. They were more efficient: faster and more accurate than the average worker. I went back to school and when I went to work with them again the next summer, they had been deported, and one was separated from his family because his wife was a U.S. citizen but he was not.

The point I am trying to make is by being so strict on immigration, we lose valuable citizens.

I would propose legislation that is strict on background checks, but allows for immigrants to come into the country and attain citizenship much more easily. Currently, it is nearly impossible to get citizenship in the United States, and even Marco Rubio, one of the members of the Gang of Eight who is writing this new reform bill, said the “pathway to citizenship” would actually be more expensive for undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, and it would be faster and cheaper for them to go home and come back filing as a new immigrant.

For this reason, the Gang of Eight needs to persuade Congress that allowing citizenship for these immigrants would not only be good for the immigrants as a humanitarian argument, but economically speaking, allowing immigrants to receive citizenship cheaper and more quickly would only boost the economy faster.

In conclusion, people will try to use the Boston Marathon terrorist attack as an argument against immigration reform, claiming that if the United States would have been more strict about immigration then these Chechen men would have never even been here to set the bombs. True, but how can we predict who will be terrorists and who will not? This is for immigrants and U.S.-born citizens.

The new immigration bill Marco Rubio and the Gang of Eight are working up will greatly improve border security by placing a double-layer fence and aerial drones.

However, the bill still needs to cut the red tape and allow a quicker and cheaper path to citizenship for current residents who are non-citizens and allow for more immigrants to enter the country.

Connor Clarke is a sophomore in history from Sherwood, Oregon.