re: #12 Dark_Falcon

But he speaks to a real problem. If we cannot shut down illegal immigration, then we have lost key amounts of control over who can become a citizen, unless ‘natural born citizenship’ is redefined. I’d rather try to cut down illegal immigration, myself.

No, Dark, the goal isn’t ever 0 illegal immigrants, not in the real world. The illegal immigrants come here because economic conditions allow it— we have enough employers willing to pay them under the table or through faked social security numbers, etc. But they’re filling an economic niche. The only reasons not to make them Americans (provided they could pass a citizenship test) would be the economic one: that someone else would then have to fill those jobs.

However, it is really not impossible to crack down on those employing illegal immigrants and force them to pay better wages and treat their employees with more decency. If it becomes non-economic for employers to employ illegals— with massive fines, lots of enforcement, etc., then we could open up the borders to a lot more immigrants than we have now, because we’d have jobs for them. And don’t believe the thing about how much our food would cost if we paid them a decent wage— it’s not true. There’s plenty of profit margin to pay those workers well.

So, the answer to illegal immigration is progressive labor reform.