GOP presidential candidate Ohio Gov. John Kasich (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – GOP presidential candidate Ohio Gov. John Kasich told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday his plan for immigration reform, which includes controlling the border, a guest worker program and amnesty.



“We need to clean up the visas, but at the end of the day, people are here now. Let them stay,” he said.





Kasich, who voted for former President Ronald Reagan’s amnesty plan in 1986 as a congressman, said Tuesday that after the Reagan amnesty, the U.S. never locked its doors.



U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Javier Palomarez asked Kasich, “How do you propose we fix our broken immigration system, and best harness what’s good about the immigrant community and particularly immigrant entrepreneurs, and how do we make that a competitive advantage for the country?”



Kasich asked Palomarez if he locked his doors at night.



“I do,” Palomarez said.



“Don’t you think our country needs to lock its doors? Now the reason you lock your doors is because you don’t want people willy nilly walking into your house,” Kasich said. “I voted for the ’86 Reagan proposal. We never locked the doors, and a country that can’t control its borders is a country that has a lot of chaos.”



Palomarez quoted a National Journal estimate that said building a wall to cover the almost 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border “would cost about $6.4 billion, and what we’ve seen over the years is that people will find a way to get around it, under it, above it, through it.”



“Now, the $6 billion figure? They leave that much on the floor up on Capitol Hill every night, okay, so let’s not get hung up on the 6 – it is a lot of money, but it isn’t prohibitive, and in terms of what we say secure the border, build a wall, whatever,” Kasich responded.



Kasich said there are certain technologies that would be “just as effective as a physical wall,” such as sensors and drones.



“I think it’s just imperative that we control our border,” he said, “but that being said, I believe we ought to have an effective guest worker program. I think people ought to be able to come in and work and be able to go back home.



“Without an effective guest worker program, then people will come in and try to sneak in and then sneak back and forth, and look labor – organized labor – doesn’t like an expanded guest worker program, but I favor it, and I have a lot of friends in organized labor, but on this issue, I think we should expand the guest worker so people are comfortable,” Kasich added.



“Secondly, once we have things in place, we don’t want people coming over. If they come over, they have an excuse, they gotta go back. No excuses, just go back,” he said.



Kasich said there should be a path to legalization for illegal immigrants who abide by the law.



“Then for those that are here that have been law-abiding, God bless them. I mean they’re a critical part of our society – from doctors to engineers to lawyers … We gotta a lot of teachers, whatever. Then I think they should have a path to legalization, and I think that can pass, and when you talk about the visa issue and all that, well that’s something that has to be dealt with. We don’t want people overstaying their visas,” he said.



“And it looks to me as though the whole immigration has to be done in a way in which we address all the different elements, but the fundamentals are this: protect the border, guest worker, people who are here who have been law-abiding get to stay,” Kasich said.



He predicted that the public would consider his proposal as reasonable and that it would pass Congress.



“The idea that we’re going to pick these folks up and ship them out, I mean that is just unbelievable - the thought of it. What are we going to do ride in neighborhoods and announce, Come on out now - you’re going to the border? First of all, it would send sheer panic to our families,” Kasich said.



“There are families here that live in fear of being divided. Could you imagine being a six- or seven- or 8-year-old kid and being told we’re going to ship your dad out? That’s just not acceptable in America,” he said. “So in terms of the whole immigration issue, we need to look - should we broaden it? We need to clean up the visas, but at the end of the day, people are here now. Let them stay.”