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The way you solve the problem is attrition thru enforcement. You don't provide a second amnesty, which rewards lawbreakers and just provides an incentive for a third amnesty. We had a "one-time" amnesty in 1986 that was supposed to resolve this problem once and for all. The USG estimated at the time that 1 million would apply and the real number turned out to be 2.7 million. We now have an estimated 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. Amnesty doesn't work.

The proponents of amnesty are wont to create the false choice between a blanket amnesty and mass deportation of 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. In reality, we have other choices and alternatives that don’t reward people who have broken our laws with the right to stay and work here and an eventual path to citizenship. The 12 to 20 million illegal aliens did not enter this country overnight and they will not leave overnight. Attrition through enforcement works. We have empirical data from Georgia, Oklahoma, and Arizona proving that it does.

Any legislation that legalizes the status of those who broke our laws by entering our country illegally and allows them to stay is amnesty. We must not only prevent the Democrats and some moderate Republicans from hijacking the meaning of the word amnesty, but the public must be made aware about the true impact of an amnesty. The Heritage Foundation concluded that the cost of amnesty alone would be $2.6 trillion. And the number of additional LEGAL immigrants who would join those who were the recipients of amnesty through chain migration, i.e., family reunification, would approach 70 million over a 20-year period, assuming there are only 12 million illegal aliens. We cannot assimilate such numbers. An amnesty would destroy the United States of America with the stroke of a pen.