Then you didn't read what I wrote, at all. You want employers dealt with. You don't want to drive them out of business for the illegals they've hired in the past. You want to make sure that they face heavy consequences for hiring illegals who come in after a guest-worker program is enacted. In order to do that, there has to be a distinction between those illegals who've arrived before vs. after the program is enacted. Therefore, you say, illegals who've been working here should get a chance at participating in the program, and then we'll be able to enforce the law against employers. I understand all that.
You just don't get my point: It. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.
We tried this before with the '86 amnesty, and now we have a President who's even more indulgent towards illegals than the one we had then. What will happen is just like before. We'll get the amnesty, and enforcement will be shelved. And in the meantime, holding out the promise of amnesty has markedly increased the number of people trying to jump the border.
You've acknowledged that a guest worker program that's not made available to illegals won't make the problem worse, and will even make it slightly better. If the Republicans who are currently pushing to have a program for illegals were to instead show a willingness to accept a guest-worker plan that exludes illegals, then such a plan would pass Congress with flying colors, and then we'd be able to see for sure what effect it would have. They know that it's their insistence on amnesty that's holding up the works. There's simply no explanation for their stance other than that they know that this strategy will be effective at reducing illegal entry, and they don't want that.
And combined with enforcement, it will reduce it that much further. Look at it this way: if we had no Border Patrol at all, how much worse would the situation be? Deterrence clearly does have an effect on some people. Increasing the size of the BP (say, doubling it) will have a deterrent effect on even more people, probably a lot more people. I think the President recognizes this fact, which is why he does everything he can (underfunding BP budgets for agents that Congress authorized, calling Minutemen "vigilantes", etc.) to undermine border security. There's no other rational explanation for this kind of behavior.
No. I want to make employers face heavy consequences for having any illegals of whatever duration working for them.
And I never said anything about "amnesty". Amnesty implies that we just let any illegal immigrants stay. I never said that. That's what the '86 amnesty was. I would allow employers who wanted to sponsor their long term employees to apply for guest worker status for them, but that is in no way "amnesty".
You've acknowledged that a guest worker program that's not made available to illegals won't make the problem worse, and will even make it slightly better.
No, I haven't. I've said repeatedly that as long as illegals can find jobs here, guest worker programs, fences, border patrols, etc. don't matter a bit.