"Seriously, if half of the illegals here refuse to sign up and "come out of the shadows" because they will be forced into a pay cut, will you favor deporting them and punish employers who undermine the system?
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Yes, that is likely to happen, and it will simply continue the stalemate already in place on this issue. And that's what we have going now -- a stalemate.
Logistically, we have no way to effectively deport the number of illegal aliens in this country. We cannot jail and fine all those who employ them, either, because our current laws only require them to make a good faith effort to assure themselves that their employees are legal. There's no real system employers can use to determine absolutely the legality of an individual, who probably has very good forged papers.
Further, there are so many who employ illegals, either knowingly or not, that the loss of this many workers would cause a collapse in several industries...not just agricultural industries.
Finally, some of the biggest contributors to campaigns for both parties are employers of illegals, either knowingly or not.
The bottom line is that we are NOT going to deport the 11-12 million illegals currently in this country. That is NOT going to happen, because it's essentially impossible, and certainly impolitic.
So, what do we do about them? We can't deport them, for the reasons listed above and for some unlisted reasons I don't have time to detail. So, what do we do? It appears that we are going to make them legal by fiat. That, according to just about everyone in political position, will fix that.
Reagan did it, and for the same reasons.