Without that step, nothing else matters. If you give amnesty (or whatever the politically correct term is) and start collecting taxes on and enforcing OSHA and other rules on the current batch of illegals the cost of hiring them will go up and businesses will have an incentive to hire a new batch of illegals. Make sure that there isn't another batch coming over every day.
Step 2. Punish employers who hire illegals.
I'm not talking about little fines as a cost of doing business. I'm talking about where businesses are destroyed if they knowingly hire illegals or go out of their way to not find out their workers' legal status. Although I don't like it, this will probably mean a program where employers can and must confirm employees' status with the government.
Step 3. Deal with the current batch of illegals.
I admit that deporting 12-20 million illegals will be nearly impossible. I'm even willing to talk about amnesty and the road to citizenship for the ones here if the floodgates of new illegals are closed.
Don't try to blow smoke up my backside by talking about a six year temporary worker plan. If they're here for six years they'll probably have citizen children here and will be impossible to send back. If the temporary worker is here for more than one year, admit that it is permanent and deal with that.
I have tried to come up with a solution, that probably everyone will object to which hopefully means it is about right. It is at another FR thread "Immigration debate set to heat up with lawmakers" as Comment #30. I would appreciate well reasoned comments, to help may improve or modify this proposal before I submit it to several Congresspeople. Being new to computers, I don't know how to make it a link from this thread. I would be grateful if someone could do it for me.
I am definitely in favor of firm border control, and hope we will reduce mandatory penalties for low level pot and other drug incarcerations. Otherwise we will not have space to jail those who enter illegally and are potentially dangerous, without spending lots more tax money on prisons.