The solution to illegal immigration requires enforcement of our current laws

"Reply: Just look at any project of public housing. After a few years, it falls apart. Why? Because the government maintains it, and given there is no incentive to keep things well maintained, it falls apart. So even if the government did build some future, high-tech fence, it would be falling apart in 5 years. People who want to come to this country would just find a way to cut-through it, dig under it, climb over it, or just blow up parts of it. The fence would be about as useful as building a giant escalator to nowhere, a la the Simpsons." That is a huge oversimplification as far as government maintenance goes "Reply: How exactly? Unless they are coming here with tanks and plan on running over your house, I don't think they are threatening your sovereignty." Because people coming into this country unbeknownst to our government and in violation its laws have a huge potential to undermine the nation's sovereignty. They haven't acquired the common language and culture of America, and appreciation of America's legal traditions and constitutional principles. Not only will they be a permanent underclass for it, they will make this nation harder to govern. We are the United States of America for a reason; we are a melting pot. We are not the Divided States of America and not the Conformed States of America. "Reply: Secure from whom? Foreign armies or people looking for a better life?" Secure from people who want to enter the country illegally "Reply: They make hardly anything, at least not enough to be substantially taxed. We should be making it easier for these people to become citizens, not harder." They would still be subject to some taxation, and you have yet to address the fact that if they are paying taxes, they are committing fraud "Reply: Deporting someone isn't as simple as just throwing someone in a van and then driving them to Mexico. You have to be sure you have a place in Mexico you can take them to, verify they are not supposed to be in the country, etc. Also, some situations are complex, such as if the child is born in America and is a legal citizen and the parents are illegal. So the cost of implementing some mass deportation policy doesn't pay for the little reduction in costs of schools, health care, and prisons. If it were really an issue about social services, you would be more concerned about reforming those instead of trying to demonize immigrants." First off, it's not a mass deportation policy. Second, no immigration law is going to be taken seriously if an illegal immigrant can receive government benefits when they're not even allowed to be here. Lastly, money doesn't really matter to me on this issue, it was just that you brought it up "Reply: I live in Oklahoma, whose claim to fame lately has been passing one of the state's toughest illegal immigration bills. (http://www.cnn.com......) You can't get a drivers licenses unless you show proof of residency. The result? It takes days to get a drivers license. Because it is just more bureaucratic hassle, which costs time and money. And everyone now hates the law." Who's to say it has to be that way? We're bound to have technological advances where it can be instantly checked "Reply: No, they shouldn't be punished, because they aren't doing anything wrong. You want to punish the business for hiring someone you don't like. Why not punish business for hiring gay people who marry illegally or break sodomy laws?" They aren't doing anything wrong? Wow. They're hiring people who aren't even allowed to be here, for sub-minimum wage pay, done under the table. That's criminal, regardless of who the person is, and they know damn well what they're doing. If they were deceived by the illegal immigrant into believing the person is legally here, and is paying them above the table and all other legal stuff, then no, the employer should not be punished By the way, this whole idea of "these are jobs no Americans will do" is an incomplete sentence. It's really "these are jobs no Americans will do for the pay an illegal immigrant will do it" "Reply: You still haven't given any reason why the government will all of the sudden be able to change and enforce the current laws? Just closing your eyes and crossing your fingers isn't going to make it so." They don't enforce the law because they don't want to. The liberals don't want to for obvious reasons, and Bush (along with some other conservatives) doesn't want to because he's corrupted by the very people who benefit from the cheap labor Secure the border, deport those we happen upon, punish the employers who knowingly hired them, streamline the legal immigration process, and maybe have a guest worker program Millions of people have obeyed our immigration laws, played by the rules, waited in line, and done everything the government has asked of them to become Americans. The most demeaning thing the government can do to them is give them the message that they would have been better off coming illegally