Inside Sorro's Plans as a Voting Delegate: Merrill Cook

Since I'm a county and state delegate at the upcoming Utah State/County Republican Conventions, I thought I'd give you all an insight on how I will be voting and why I'll vote that way. The first candidate who has courted my vote is none other than on again/off again Republican Merrill Cook.
Merrill was a Congressman in Utah's Second District back in the 90s, but was defeated by Jim Matheson. Why is he running for the Third District seat? It comes down to the big hot topic in Utah again this cycle: immigration. Chris Cannon has been nothing if not pro-immigration and pro-free trade.
So I was at Merrill's meeting, and he first had his campaign manager speak to us, and he seemed like quite a zealot. He was busy talking about the evils of illegal immigrants and how great Matt Throckmorton was. Blah blah blah, Merrill sealed my not voting for him right there.
Nevertheless, not one to pass up a free meal, I stayed for the remainder of the meeting. During that time, Merrill said that his differences with Rep Cannon boil down to two things: immigration and trade. Unfortunately for Mr Cook, those are two things that I disagree with him on.
1. Immigration. I've gone over it before, and there are others who are more eloquent than I am about it, but in a nutshell immigration is good for us. Illegals are bad, but only in the sense that they are legitimate criminals. If it's some poor guy who crossed 150 miles of desert to get a job picking lettuce in Arizona for $3/hour, let him stay. Make him legal, so then he's paying Social Security, FICA, income tax, and getting paid at least minimum wage. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: eliminate immigration caps. If you aren't a criminal, you're welcome here. This is the land of opportunity and anybody who is willing to be an honest citizen should be welcome here. That would almost completely eliminate illegal immigration.
2. Trade. Free trade is important to the US. Without it, you'll lose jobs and prosperity. What's making it so that we can continue to have higher standards of living? It's cars made in Mexico, furniture in China, luxury goods from Europe, and services provided right here in the United States. If we were to shut off the country from other countries or start levying tariffs on things, we'd be paying a lot more for a lot less because we can't manufacture all we consume. There would be fewer jobs and more economic pain.
I'll probably go into detail a little more later on these things, but for now that will suffice.