Right now illegal immigrants are an essential part of agriculture and manufacturing. What we need to do is give all illegals here now legal status and crack down on border security. I'm not welcoming more of them, I just want to be able to tax the ones here now and make sure they can stay a part of our economy. I also know an illegal family that has a terminally ill girl, and I can't stand thinking about them being sent back.
Saggy, Any one would be sorry for a family with a terminally ill girl. However policy for a nation can not be determined on this one case.
I think the point has been made that the taxes that we would collect would not nearly compensate for the benefits that they are garnishing from our system. I too at once thought that this would be the answer, but on the wages they are making they are not being taxed enough to pay for the benefits they are receiving.
Why is it important that they stay a part of our economy? We have plenty of our own American citizens unemployed that we need to be putting to work in these jobs. We would not only be paying for the illegal immigrant's benefits under what you are proposing, we will continue to be paying the unemployment/welfare benefits for the Americans we have that are displaced from work too.
The situation does need some control on numbers. Somewhere between what you are proposing and your fellow posters in opposition there must be a solution.
I agree that there are jobs that the illegal immigrants do that many unemployed Americans would still be reticent in taking. Perhaps this is where the need to us is derived. Maybe however if these jobs payed a little better, Americans would be willing to take them. And is it right to expect illegal immigrants to work for nearly "slave wages"?
Our country does need a documented guest worker program that works. But that program must have a control on the numbers of which we receive as well as the benefits these folks garnish from our system. Otherwise our resources are not going to whom our first obligations should be to.