The part of her article I disagree with is where she says that Americans won't work at menial jobs for the money that employers will pay. I believe that Americans would work those jobs if the welfare system was cut back to only provide benefits to the truly disabled or otherwise unemployable poor. Hunger creates a powerful motivation to get a job.
... and there should a National ID card upgraded to the needs of today's security, that would identify a person as a legal Immigrant. Todays documentation (i.e. Driver's license) is outdated, meant for a different era. Everyone knows you can get fake documents as good as the originals if you can affor the price.
This is what I have been saying from day one.
The vast majority of the illegals are here for 1 main reason, which is employment and with that comes money and health care to a certain extent.
Right now, the penalties for the people hiring the illegals aren't nearly steep enough, which is why there is a job-rich environment for these people to make the trek to where the job or jobs are.
There is more than one thing that needs to be fixed. The Border needs to be secured. I get the feeling that this is happening, maybe not a wall, but the surveillance is being stepped up alledgedly. The employers are preying on these desperate people. That alone makes them bastards, but they are also breaking the law, so throw the book at them.
Then finally, the entire immigration system needs to be re-vamped and tightened.
===============================================
Welfare is not for life. The basic assumption equation is backwards. Illegals don't come here because there are low paying jobs, the jobs are low paying because the illegals are here to do them.
We would, as a nation, have to be willing to pay more for many services if we want to force employers to pay a living wage to American workers. Of course the benefit to us would be through the tax revenues collected and the lessening of the burden on the public that illegals cause. It would work.
Second Trespass - Incarcerate for 30 days, tatoo face with distinctive brand, deport
Third Trespass - shoot on site, cremate, deport ashes.
So it takes a Cynthia Tucker to flush out the statists on Free Republic, does it?
And you also consider Joe LIEberman a hero after yesterday's WSJ column?
The liberals would say there's hope for you yet.
For the record, and for all. I do not advocate or condone the hiring of illegals. I support identifying them and deporting them. The intent of my comment was to point out the difficult barriers that government puts up that inhibits the abilitiy for us to control the problem. Some suggest that it is easy to go to a website to make sure someone is legal. I'm sorry, it is not that simple. When a Mexican that barely speaks english presents a driver's license and a SS# that goes with the name on the license, there is very little else that we can afford to do. Sure, check a website to make sure that the SS# matches the name on the license.
My apologies to all that believe I advocate the hiring of illegals. I do not. The government needs to get serious about the issue on several fronts.
Finally -
An iron clad guest worker program for 1-2 million foreigners and not just Mexicans. Asians too. This program would be just for agricultural, meat packing and food industry workers. No wives and family allowed. You work and go home and this is enforced
Jailing the employer is only one third of the equation. If employers end up not employing them, yet they still can go on the government dole and are not deported we have delt the economy a double blow.
Employer enforcement, denial of benefits, and aggresive deportation & border security need to happen concurrently for the solution to be effective.
If all they do is punish employers, then we all have to work that much harder to pay for ourselves and the illegals.