Your comments regarding the Roman imperial model are happening right now. I am not sure that these people are of an illeagal status.
But I do know that many green card holders are serving at this time.

Those soldiers should get their citizenship IMO.

But as far as illeagals making vital contributions to this country, perhaps you should consider the impact of their presence in terms of strain of public services. I have heard and read stories of clogged emergency rooms, overcrowded schools that are at the breaking point. If they are paying taxes then where is the money going? I doubt that many of them are tax payers though. How much money can you send back to Mexico if you pay taxes?

No, I tend to believe that the vast majority of them work here under the table. Thus creating a burdon of society rather than an asset.

I will----just as soon as YOU respond to the video which is the subject of this thread. You ignored it; and then changed the subject.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

Umm,
I think they call that California?!

In addition to my "community service, earned citizenship" proposal in the Immigration Forum...I think that’s a great idea.

Serve a certain amount of years in the military, show that you value this country, payback the communities you’ve fed off of, and receive the grand prize.

Iraq is irrelevant...by the time something like this was enacted...we won't be there.

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"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

The Solution for Illegal Immigrants (Gray areas discussed throughout the thread)

I think the problem with illegal immigration is not the numbers. The numbers are a regional issue, but on a national level it's not a big deal.

I think the problem is control, and security: terrorists could hide in that flood of illegals and sneak into the country, and we'll never catch them.

So the key is not reducing immigration numbers; it's reducing the share of the immigration that is illegal.

Right now we allow fewer than 1 million legal immigrants a year, and only a portion of that comes from Mexico. If we want to reduce illegal immigration, one thing we have to do is relieve the pressure by increasing the legal quota, with much of the increase earmarked for Latin America.

More at the blog, or you can read the version I posted here as a topic.
http://midtopia.blogspot.com/2006/04...migration.html
http://www.politicalforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=15972

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Man up.

I don't see how you could put those sentences next to each other.

When terrorists do get through our borders, it’s the regions responsibility, but those regional officials get the tools, resources, and authority from the upper hands of the nation. Another terrorists attack on American soil would definitely qualify as a “big deal” on a national level.

...thats just in response to those two lines. I think Illegals are a "big deal" on the national level for many other reasons. But when you acknowledge the terrorist factor, it should be self-evident.

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"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

The Solution for Illegal Immigrants (Gray areas discussed throughout the thread)

Perhaps I was unclear.

You misunderstand me. I agree that the security issue is of national concern. I simply disagree with the Chicken Littles who cry "we're being flooded with foreigners!" We can absorb a lot of immigrants; that's not the problem. The problem is finding the security threats hidden in the flood. Which is why the problem isn't the overall number of immigrants, it's the share that is illegal.

Put another way, legal plus illegal immigration is estimated to be about 1.5 million people a year (1 million legal, 500,000 illegal). I think we could absorb even more -- 2 million a year -- without any problems other than some regional dislocations. In other words, on a national scale 2 million immigrants is doable.

The problem is that the tide of illegal immigrants could hide infiltrating terror threats. You could try to solve that problem by completely halting illegal entry, but IMO that's a fool's errand; it's simply not achievable at a reasonable cost. From a security perspective, though, you could achieve the same result by upping legal immigration to 1.5 million. Same number of immigrants, but all of them documented and checked out. And with the flood of illegals diverted into legal channels, illegal crossings would slow to a trickle because there's simply no reason to risk it if adequate legal channels are available. Then the handful of bad guys still trying to sneak across the border would be easy to spot and apprehend.

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Man up.

Indeed that is much clearer...and I understand that POV...but I don't agree with it.

If you increase the number of legal immigration (or simply make it an easier process) some of the Illegals could take the legal route other than hop the border/swim the river...

…but in regards to "finding the security threats hidden in the flood" it won't make a difference. The security threats will always take the illegal route, and even with an illegal/year number dropping half (which is a very optimistic number) to 250k…its still going to require additional efforts to capture the border jumpers.

…and the other POV that I understand…but don’t agree with is: “You could try to solve that problem by completely halting illegal entry, but IMO that's a fool's errand; it's simply not achievable at a reasonable cost.”

The main reason why most will think of it as impossible is because all sides of the spectrum are preaching that POV…the Liberal Dems that would rather no borders existed in the world…the Ultra-Capitalist (ie. Bush-n-Gang) who want slave labor in America…left wing legal pressure groups (such as: ACLU, The Raza, etc) who attack constructive proposals for being “racist”…the MSM who doesn’t want to offend any possible viewer base and will run right along with their Lefty cohorts by mocking bills such as the fence building bill…etc.

And the reality still exists that if we built a decent sized barb wire fence, sent National Guard troops to catch the 100 or so illegals who can afford a ladder, slowly ramped up the general enforcement of the border, created a non-amnesty plan for dealing with the illegals we have today (which would discourage illegal immigration…naturally my plan in the Immigration Forum ….the issue would be minuscule.

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"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

The Solution for Illegal Immigrants (Gray areas discussed throughout the thread)

We'll still have to patrol the border, sure. But if we come up with an immigration policy that more closely matches supply and demand, illegal immigration should drop by a LOT. And it will be a lot easier to catch the bad guys hiding in the trickle than it is to catch the bad guys hiding in the flood. Because the problem now really isn't that we can't see the people crossing the border; it's that while we're apprehending one another hundred go by.

You're talking a 2,000-mile border, which must be patrolled in depth -- not just at the border, but some distance behind it as well to catch leakers. We have about 11,000 border patrol agents to cover the entire country, not just that border. And many of those are not active agents, but support personnel.

Say that (generously) half of those are actual agents deployed to the Mexican border. Working three shifts, seven days a week, that gives you one agent per mile of border. If their job is to patrol to a depth of, say, 5 miles, that's one agent per five square miles of border region.

Fences can be climbed, cut or tunneled under. They slow down illegals, and can be used to channel the flow to some extent; but they don't really stop them.

I hope you're joking, because that's so unrealistic it's laughable.

Clearly something has to be done to manage the supply side of the equation as well, to make crossing the border less of a lure. But we've been battling illegal immigrants for a century, most of that time without amnesties, and guess what? They're still here.

The stick alone simply doesn't work. The only way to stop the tide of illegal immigration is to give the people who would otherwise arrive illegally an incentive not to do so. Sure, throw in some cost-effective security measures to make it harder to get in; that will nudge more people toward the legal path. But the legal path must be an achievable one, or it simply won't be taken seriously.

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Man up.

Good God man/woman what are you basing your opinion on?
Do you have kids in school? They are over crowded to the level of stupid.

Legal and illegal immigration must be slashed dramatically now,
and the border needs to be secured at all costs. Period.

Comments on this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7WJeqxuOfQ