“We are trying to keep a balance.”

That’s what Diego Torres, an activist working to assist immigrants in North Carolina, told a reporter for the Associated Press about tensions between immigrants who have been in the country, trying to obtain a work visa and solidify their legal standing for years, and more recently arrived immigrants who some feel are receiving preferential treatment in the pursuit of work visas and legal status.

The issue once again calls attention to our nation’s woeful mismanagement of the immigration issue.

As we have said before, we support tougher border security, including more personnel policing the border, stopping those who have no intention of following the laws and who could pose a threat to the safety of their would-be neighbors.

But as we have also said before, we support reforming our immigration laws so the process of entering the nation and, with proper vetting and oversight, receiving work visas and the ability to pursue a better life is more streamlined, easier and more effective.

An easier process for legal immigration, one that focuses on only keeping out those who are threats, will only make it easier to identify and address such threats.

If, as many of America’s mayors said and the Associated Press reported in the Nov. 28 edition of the Sun-Gazette, we “successfully welcome and integrate these newcomers and help them pursue the American dream” and “a chance to work,” the resources devoted to identifying and preventing illegal immigration can be deployed more effectively.

Our current system is lop-sided between the frustrations of innocent people caught in bureaucratic quagmires as their pursuits of the God-given rights are delayed and the frustrations of the American people who see a system bogged down in setting punitive hurdles before those innocent people rather than successfully apprehending and deporting those who are threats.

The activists are right — what we need is a more balanced approach.