What you're missing is that as long as we continue to allow illegals to work here, they have an incentive to keep coming. And all the fences in the world won't stop them. They can get here by boat, or even by coming in as tourists and just not going back.
If we allow illegals to work here, how would we know the difference between the ones who got here yesterday and the ones who have been here for years?
Until we insist that everyone who works here must have a legal status, then we are inviting more illegals.
Once the guest workers begin arriving, it will be much harder for the illegals to stay here.
And all the fences in the world won't stop them. They can get here by boat, or even by coming in as tourists and just not going back.
It'll slow them down. There's a reason why we're not being swamped with illegals from Bangladesh.
If we allow illegals to work here, how would we know the difference between the ones who got here yesterday and the ones who have been here for years?
That's my point. If we start in with a guest-worker program for illegals, we'd have to start making those distinctions. If we don't, we won't have to. Just let the new guest workers - the ones who apply properly from their home countries - take their place.
So let me ask you this. Say there are two options before us. One is maintaining the status quo for the next six months, the other is instituting a guest-worker program now that's available only to people applying in their home countries. Under which scenario would we be worse off than we would be under the other at the end of six months?
Another reason you are dead wrong is that the cost to businesses will go upif a plan like this exists because the employers will have to pay taxes on the illegals thus driving uptheir costs. At that time, these businesses will demand cheaper labor from newer illegals who subvert the guest worker plan.
Without strong enforcement of existing laws, everyone knows that any new law will be a joke just like every previous one.