As a service to readers, I submitted three questions on immigration to Barry Loudermilk and Bob Barr, the two Republican candidates in the July 22 runoff for the 11th District U.S. House seat that includes much of Cobb County. A slightly edited (for space) version of the questions and responses is printed below.

(The unedited version is available online on my MDJ blog page and on the Dustin Inman Society blog.)

Here are the questions and their responses:

1) Driven mostly by illegal employment, illegal immigration is costing Georgia taxpayers and the state budget about $2.4 billion dollars a year, according to Gov. Nathan Deal in 2011. Georgia contains more illegal aliens than Arizona, according to DHS.

E-Verify uses Social Security numbers and other data already available to the federal government to offer employers guidance on the employment eligibility of already-hired new employees. E-Verify is already required for many federal contractors. Georgia has had E-Verify use law on the books since 2006.

Q: Given that it is a federal offense to knowingly hire and employ illegal labor, as a member of Congress, would you work to pass federal legislation that mandated use of E-Verify for all employers, nationwide?

Barry Loudermilk: “Yes”

Bob Barr: “Yes”

2) Traditional levels of legal immigration are around 250,000 to 300,000 people annually. The U.S. currently takes in more than one million legal immigrants each year, more than any other nation in the world. The Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies and other authorities report that most immigrants tend to vote for big-government Democrats. A coalition of activists on the left who are in search of new voters and business interests looking for higher profits dominate the immigration debate in Washington and are pushing hard for not only another legalization program, but a doubling or tripling of legal immigration and huge expansion of the various existing guest worker programs. The general proposal is to add about 33 million permanent job seekers through legalization and immigration increases over the next decade.

Using the logic of natural laws of supply and demand, many voters make the observation that importing even more foreign labor, legal or not, would surely result in lower wages and more desperation from American workers in the search for jobs.

Q: Are there any circumstances under which you would vote to increase legal immigration and guest worker levels as the people’s rep. from the 11th District of Georgia?

Loudermilk: “No”

Barr: “No”

3) In the U.S., there are correctly severe penalties for parents leaving their children alone in a parked car. These penalties are enforced.

Estimates are that by the end of the fiscal year ending Oct. 1, about 90,000 children between the ages of 4 and 17 will have been brought to and dropped off at the Southern border of the USA. People have been told by news outlets in Central America that Congress will soon pass another amnesty or that President Barack Obama will unilaterally grant them and the parents who bring them free passage into the country and supply them with benefits and schooling.

Q: As a member of Congress, what action would you push for regarding these children dropped off at our borders and the people who bring them in to the USA illegally?

Loudermilk: “The current influx of children into the United States is placing a tremendous burden on border States. My heart goes out to these children and families who are being brought across the border, but the federal government and especially the current administration have not only avoided preventing this travesty, but are encouraging it by providing legal services for these families, at taxpayers’ expense.

“While these families are here and under the authority and care of our immigration and naturalization service, we should provide for their immediate medical and basic needs, but only until they are returned to the authorities of the nation from which they originated to be reunited with their families.”

Barr: “The mass border crossings by ‘children’ reflects a deliberate policy by this Administration to encourage people to enter the U.S. illegally. The Congress must take action immediately — through its oversight responsibility and the power of the purse — to stop this administration from spending taxpayer dollars dispersing these children around the country.

“It is one thing to provide sustenance to the children in the immediate area of the border; beyond that, they should be placed on buses and sent back to Mexico. We must demand Mexico take action to stop this illegal migration, instead of condoning if not encouraging it.”

It will be interesting to see the decision of the voters.

D.A. King of Marietta is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society (http://www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org)