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Actually I think President Bush is showing a great deal of courage and leadership. Realistically we have to shut down the black market illegal alien railroads that don't care if they're shipping migrant farm workers or Ossama's best buddy. The best way is to open up the foreign worker system and document those entering the country *legally*.

Also realistically this nation has to start addressing the impending worker shortage as the baby boom generation retires and one way to do that is through immigration reform, because if things are left standing there won't be enough people working to support the retirees expecting their social security and medicare checks. This process begins in 2006 and gets progressively worse in each successive year.

The move is also going to be politically costly for President Bush, but he's doing it anyway because it has to be done.

Of course the US will change with a larger influx of Mexican immigrants, but melting pot has always changed and remade itself when it absorbed large influxes of immigrants, in over 200 years that process has made us nothing but better.

And, in addition to your points, the $billions that may flow to Mexico don't stay in Mexico.

Mexicans perform jobs Americans are too proud to do, it seems.

Immigrants are a plus, not a minus (the founder of Intel is not a native American). Conservatives need to put away images of scorn which border on stereotyping bigotry, and embrace positive aspects of this policy.

The fastest way to make new Republicans is to make people prosperous. Don't help DemocRats radicalize components of the citizenry to enslave them (and so, us) in a cycle of false governmental largesse. That cycle requires a perpetual base of left-leaning citizens to ensure perpetuation of the enslavement. Look at the black vote: a solid block of DemcRat supporters, always stuck at the bottom of socioeconomic ladder.

Comprimise is required here. Don't despise: embrace. Elections are won at the center; don't let a pseudocentrist win (Dean) by espousing what seems to be bigotry.

"Of course the US will change with a larger influx of Mexican immigrants, but melting pot has always changed and remade itself when it absorbed large influxes of immigrants, in over 200 years that process has made us nothing but better."

But you have to remember that in the past those large influxes of immigrants WANTED TO BE AMERICANS. They assimilated. The Mexicans don't want to do that.

"but melting pot has always changed and remade itself when it absorbed large influxes of immigrants,"

I suggest you re-read the article. There is no more melting going on the pot. I live in Hudson County, New Jersey and oftentimes here it is like you are not in America at all, rather in some bizarre bazzar of the entire third world. Everwhere and with everything Spanish is offered as an alternative language of communication. Bush won't even propose something as simple as an end to bi-lingual education, I'm sure.

This is like Israel and the Palis, Israel must give so the Palis can take, and nothing is asked of them in return. They lied to us in '86 with the last amnesty and this is nothing but another lie. I'm not saying it's intended as a lie, just that it will turn out to be unworkable, unenforceable, and in the end, untrue.

There should have been an IMMEDIATE moratorium on Sept. 12th, 2001. If it were JUST the mexicans, that would be one thing, but you know it is going to be millions of muslims as well, who have already demonstrated their loyalty and love of America.

And the social security thing is OUT OF THE QUESTION!

It used to be that one could only come in with a sponsor who assumed all responsibility for you. Now you immediately become a ward of the state, whether you're a legal or illegal alien. That is why they are coming in such large numbers.

Absorbed? This could lead to civil. And if not then we are no longer worth much anyway. This is Balkinization of the highest order. This is not some small change to the USofA, this is it's utter destruction. If the changes in the USofA had been presented to your parents or grand parents as one big package, they would have leveled D.C. That we are not says the liberals have done their propoganda job well, even on those that suppose themselves conservative.

A nice thought, and generous, but there is the problem of assimilation. If there are more of "us" then the immigrants become Americans. If there are more of "them" then our children become Mexicans.

Which do you prefer? The values of America or Mexico?

This is only going to encourage the black market railroads. Now they can tell everyone: ``you just have to wait a few years and you will be a citizen. Don't bother with that greencard nonsense.'' Now we have a whole bunch of people of people who have no respect for U.S. law and were rewarded for it. If they got rewarded for breaking U.S. law once, why should they obey any other law we have?

Now we have two classes of citizens: those that have the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and those that have the rights. How does it feel to be a second class citizen.

"Actually I think President Bush is showing a great deal of courage and leadership."

I agree. I trust President Bush. I believe that any large scale effort to throw illegal workers out of the country is politically impossible. I also believe in the spirit of allowing honest hard working people to live here. Of course, if Bush's policy is adopted, I would hope that we would also strengthen our borders to prevent further illegal immigration.

but melting pot has always changed and remade itself when it absorbed large influxes of immigrants, in over 200 years that process has made us nothing but better.

There was a time when periods of immigration were followed by moratoriums on immigration, to give the new arrivals time to assimilate. The influx has been too great for the melting pot effect. There are sections of this country where English is no longer even spoken. The country is being Bulkanized.

The best way is to open up the foreign worker system and document those entering the country *legally*.

And what in the world convinces you that this will do anything to stop aliens from entering illegally? When a (newly legitimized) guest worker's three years are up, what makes you think he will willingly go back to Mexico if he doesn't want to?

If you want to know what the flaws are to this proposal, you have to look at it from the perspective of an illegal alien who already has no respect for our immigration laws.