[luvbach1]

Your reference to "criminals" caught my eye. I suppose you meant criminals in the sense that they have violated our borders, and in that you are quite right. But the "popular wisdom" that illegal aliens are all noble workers (especially Mexicans)seeking employment in areas in which Americans won't work (promulgated by no less than the president, who also used the euphemism, "undocumented workers", favored by the open borders crowd) can readily be refuted. The fact is, that these people are far from cream of their society. Many are illiterate in their language, hampering them in obtaining even unskilled jobs. Among the "eager workers" are not-a-few criminals who significantly contribute to our crime rate, especially car thefts and burglaries, as evidenced by crime statistics and the number of aliens in California jails and prisons. This, and much more, is a reality. The proposed Bush program will accelerate the influx of more of the same. I support the president for many other reasons but I am disappointed beyond expression at this shortsighted compounding of our illegal immigration problem. Who has been feeding him this stuff? Or worse, was this his idea?

[Cultural Jihad]

Look at it this way. Once we have established a way to normalize those honest and productive immigrants then anyone left scurrying across the desert must be up to no good. It is a good idea to separate out those who want to come for noble purposes and those who do not. Instead of a flood of illegal immigrants most of whom have intentions of working and paying taxes and being productive and honest, it will become a trickle of those who are up to no good.

[Thumper1960]

Correct.

"Criminals", in that they flout our immigration laws. Wanton disregard for a basic law such as immigration does not bode well for the illegal's observance of any other US laws. If the illegal will not obey the immigration laws, he will very likely ignore any other laws which he wishes to disregard.

We already know that not the best nor the brightest are the vast majority of illegals. Jimmy Carter allowed in the scum and dregs of Castro's Socialist "paradise" and prison resort during Mariel. We seem to forget the thousands of crimes committed and the enormous disruption of civil life because of that wholesale influx of otherwise illegal mass. Vincente Fox goes Castro one better. He gets a president to agree to take his overflow of human surplus, thereby relieving himself of a teeming mass of unemployed and itinerant drifters who might otherwise join Mexico's "People's and Peasants" guerrilla movements. Instead of forcing Mexico into the 19th century and making Mexico respond to its fundamental weaknesses, we take them and thereby allow a latent cancer to infect our own economic, political and social institutions.

As if we don't have enough troubles to correct.