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If the supply of foreign workers were to dry up (say, through actually enforcing the immigration law, for starters), employers would respond to this new, tighter, labor market in two ways. One, they would offer higher wages, increased benefits, and improved working conditions, so as to recruit and retain people from the remaining pool of workers. At the same time, the same employers would look for ways to eliminate some of the jobs they now are having trouble filling. The result would be a new equilibrium, with blue-collar workers making somewhat better money, but each one of those workers being more productive.

These "jobs American" won't do" only exist at that wage level and working condition because aliens can be found to do the work.

Illegals are a massive subsidy to business, which shifts the cost of illegals onto the taxpayers through the welfare state.

Illegal labor is "cheap" only to sleazy employers, it is very expensive to the rest of us.

You've been listening to the AFL CIO unionists who don't know beans about wages or labor or upward mobility if it smacked them in the face.

In fact, this policy will unleash thousands of more businesses allowing them to hire employees who are thankful for a job and do a great job at it! It will also allow the feds to collect taxes on formerly untaxed labor and bring the folks into the US family honorably.

Bravo President Bush!

Oh baloney! If you think illegals only exists because of crooked employers, then you are 1) projecting, or 2) misinformed. Yeah there are loser out there that will exploit these folks but they are criminals and should be busted. This plan will help do just that. I admit I am biased because I spent a great deal of my early years working side-by-side with illegals and I can honestly say I would take a hard working hombre from Central Mexico over 90% of natives. We found they were the only ones we could count on to work as hard as we did and not piss & moan about how hot it was in TX in July! Heck we even had the local Sheriff bringing us guys (all were gringos) from jail to offer them the chance to earn money to pay their fines rather than spend a month in jail. Some could cut it but most said "take me back to jail". Imagine that! Guys would choose a month in jail over a week of hard work, money in their pocket and freedom. Compare that attitude with that of men who walked across two deserts with only 4 Clorox jugs full of water to get here.

Immigrants from Mexico abide by the same laws of human nature as we "natives". Once, in a generation or two, they work their way into the middle class, they too will complain about the "true societal costs" of all those illegals "flooding" the country. In other words, they will say nonsensical thing like some of the folks on this thread.

Remember those hard working hombres I spoke of earlier? Well for the ones who chose to stay (and legalize), all but one now have 20-something kids who would be hard pressed to give up Saturday morning cartoons to go out and mow the front yard. So guess who mows their yard? Thats right - a band of fresh immigrants who will work their ass off to make a living.

I like what Bush has done from what I've heard so far. Not amnesty - gives hard working folks a way to honorably do what they were going to do anyway. I say bring em on! I would rather be surrounded by God fearing people who understand the meaning of hard work and sacrifice than a bunch of pansy-ass agnostic whiners who are too good for hard work anymore. And people who work hard for what they have will fight to keep it - future conservatives.