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"The existence of millions of illegal aliens who work for very little money and are part of our economy is a cold hard fact. It's all very well to bleat about "getting control of our borders" or "enforcing the law", but it is unrealistic to believe that we are just going to eject every illegal alien -- even if we could."

The way to get a handle on the problem is to de-incentivize the law-breaking by punishing--via hefty fines--the employers who hire these illegals at the cut rate. This would dry up the income potential for the illegals and induce them to join the guest-worker program. Those who refused to do so would be assumed to be criminals and rounded up to the best of our ability.

FReegards...MUD

The guest-worker program was largely ended years ago. This was a mistake.

Sanctions on employers were part of the 1980's immigration law. Nice theory; in practice, there is no incentive for California, for example, to put most of their agricultural sector out of business.

If there was a real guest-worker program, then we would be able to monitor and regulate these workers and they would be more likely to go home when seasonal needs aren't there. "Tightening the borders" means that illegals, once they get here, don't leave for the season -- they risk not getting back in.