First, I am not suggesting that people break the law, or ignore the laws on the books. What I am saying is this:
We do have an immigration problem, particularly with illegal Mexicans. We have laws that few are enforcing. Our country is gaining a lot of economic advantage from the status quo. In other words, a lot of people are using cheap, illegal labor.
On the other side, we have a lot of people whining about it, but not offering real solutions. They just harp on all those foreigners, and they sound like bigots when they do -- even when they're not trying to be bigoted, they come across that way.
Any talk of amnesty or other compromises riles these people up even more. But again, apart from shouting "Deport! Deport!" they really don't address the economic and practical ramifications of deporting millions of people.
I am suggesting that we radically change our immigration, particularly with respect to Mexico, which is sending us the most illegals right now. We need to find ways to make it just as easy to immigrate legally as it is illegally, and find a way to reward these people to give them an incentive to use the new system. Don't know what that system would look like, but I'd like to see some lawmakers tackle it.
Now, the Pat Buchanan's of this world may not like my ideas, but I am happy to say that few Americans pay attention to what Pat is saying, either, so we're even.