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Comprehensive immigration reform must come sooner than later. If not for political gamesmanship, substantive immigration reform would have happened long ago.

Instead, the American public is left waiting for Washington do something while the functional legitimacy of immigration law continues to erode.

At a Feb. 10 Riverside County supervisors meeting, Riverside County supervisors John Benoit and Marion Ashley reiterated their support for immigration reform.

Unfortunately, our federal government has failed to move that issue, and its certainly one that needs to be addressed, said Mr. Benoit. I represent a part of the county that is dramatically impacted by the needs of good people who are here but are not legally here. Thats a problem for them and certainly a problem for our government also.

There are approximately 275,000 undocumented immigrants living in the Inland Empire, according to the Migration Policy Institute. An estimated 150,000 reside in Riverside County, nearly a third of whom live below the poverty line and most of whom are without health insurance.

We educate them. We ought to try to keep them and not let them go back to the countries and then theyre competing against us, said Mr. Ashley at the supervisors meeting.

In 2013, the county supervisors unanimously approved a resolution in support of an immigration reform bill being considered at the time. The resolution claimed that our broken national immigration system undermines our core national and local interests.

Further, the resolution argued that developing a comprehensive, functioning immigration system is essential to ensuring Americas future economic prosperity.

All of these concepts are important to keep in mind amidst ongoing national debate over what to do with the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

It is clear that undocumented immigrants broke the law to get here. It is also clear that our immigration policies have been poorly conceptualized and enforced.

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EDITORIAL: An immigration law eroded