Xenophobia is never pretty...

Just my two cents here:

Whenever this discussion comes up, the two main points that I see are that first, the immigrant broke US law by gaining entry illegally into the country, and two, the amount of money that those immigrants use through "abusing" social services like healthcare and public education for their children.

I can't debate #1: you'd have to be a fool to argue that those immigrants broke the law. It's #2 that usually throws me off, because one of the more common solutions I see is to "round up them illegals and deport them to Mexico because they're stealing our jobs and money!" Here's my take on it: if we're already a country that's struggling financially to reduce borrowing and pay down the debt, I cannot for the life of me find a solution to deporting nearly 20 million illegal immigrants without a significant expenditure on the part of the American taxpayer. Not only would you have to hire a HUGE amount of federal agents to support that level of work, but then you'd have to worry about their pay over time, because there's no way that we can just hire 100,000 ICE agents and they'd have all 20 million illegals in a prison awaiting deportation the next day.

This is an inequitable solution to a problem that will continue to persist, but yet, everyone keeps suggesting that either clogging our own prison systems (which are largely contracted out at exorbitant prices, mind you) or mass deportation of illegal immigrants is somehow less expensive than another possible solution. This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but personally, if you were to give me a year to plan and implement a solution, I'd vote for amnesty, and here's why:

1. If you give every illegal immigrant in the United States currently an opportunity within a three or six month window to claim their status, you have them pay a fee and register them. There's some second-order effects here, notably that those immigrants can now pay taxes, effectively contributing to the system that they were leeching off of.

2. If an illegal immigrant misses that registration window, it's tough noogies, you had your chance, back to your point of origin. We can also assume that illegal immigrants with a history of violent crime or drug involvement will likely not self-report, meaning that the incidence rate of those types being deported goes up, as the "legitimate" immigrants self-report and register while the scum hides.

3. We can determine what employers have been hiring illegal immigrants and fine them appropriately. Failure to comply or self-report results in mandatory jail time for the head of the business plus any advisory boards, minimum five years, for each offense discovered; to me, this only encourages self-reporting.

4. We can then start over and extend the provision of current labor laws to include that mandatory jail time sentence to businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants in an attempt to deter to any business looking to save money through doing so.


Again, this will likely be an unpopular opinion (it seems that this is one of those things where everyone is more content to attempt and cement their own moral superiority), but it seems to me at least to be the most reasonable solution to the problem. I grew up on the Arizona-Mexico border; many of my classmates were the children of illegal immigrants. Some of them turned out to be great people, and some of them were literal scum. I do feel that given the opportunity, some of those friends of mine would jump at the chance to pay a fine and legalize their status, but obviously, that's my own conjecture not rooted in any sort of fact. However, I believe the most firm solution that the country could work towards involves legalizing a large portion of the 20 million already here and involving them in paying for some of the finances needed to support our already over-extended health and education infrastructures.

To judge 1 person by race is to judge us all. After all, we are all human and following that reasoning we are all from the same race. Our world is made up of many different nations which break down into different cultures, ethnic groups, and beliefs, but still only ONE race, HUMAN!

I believe that we were all created by a loving God. I believe every person, every life is of value. I do believe that in America the primary language is and should remain English. I feel that people who immigrate to our country should conform to the unity intended in the words, "United" States. I also believe that America was made great in part due to immigrants, but those immigrants came to leave their old country behind and adopt a new way of life. My only problem with some immigrants is that they refuse to learn English and that they insist on everything in America being changed to suit their preferences. This may be politically incorrect but, if you do not like our Flag, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our Freedom of Religion, Press, Assembly, and speech, our Pledge of Allegiance to our Flag, or our National Anthem, then please accept my earnest assistance in either helping you to understand why they are precious to us or helping you pack to return to your country of origin if you like the life you left more than the country you came to. I also believe that anyone who comes here illegally shows no respect for our laws from the very start and should be removed or forced to do extra to show that their attitude and allegiance have shifted.

I am totally against it, and this is why:
Is it, or is it not still part of entering the military, to show you have not been convicted of a crime? If so, being in a country without propper documentation is still a crime, is it not?
Secondly, I recall several non-citizens that I served with, though they were all in America legally, and they each stated that they had a skill set that made them attractive to the government, such as a language that was necessary, or an ability that was seriously in demand.
NOW... living in a border state, I KNOW that many of those who are entering this country, are not of South American citizenship. There have been MANY who have crossed illegally lately, from Asia, Europe and the Middle East. That said, I think back to the non-citizens who served with me, who made those comments about having needed skillsets. With all that is going on in the Middle East at this time, I wonder how easy it would be, for say... an illegal of Middle Eastern descent, to walk into a recruiting office, and be met with happy smiles due to their language abilities alone?
Lets have a show of hands, keeping in mind all the 'Blue on Green" attacks there were/are, and the idea that we'd be not only training them, but putting weapons into their hands... and putting them into large crowds (AKA Targets of Opportunity) on our military bases, now, honestly, how many of us would like to have that senario acted out, on a base containing our spouses and children?
I am not Xenephobic, what I am is realistic. I'd take a legal burger-flipper any day, over someone who has an agenda that contains "kill the infidel" as their mental mindset.

I also have a problem with the Xenophobia in this country. I find it concerning. A reasonable question how many are actual "Illegals" and how many are just Latinos who's language skills are not up to snuff and it just another label we can pin on them. Also how much of our "Infrastructure" is provided by Illegals. What would happen if by some Miracle that we could actually magically get rid of all "Illegals" and come to find out all our major Metropolitan Cities could not function and our Crops and Meat could not be processed because guess what? it was illegals providing us with these resources.