I think it's very bad for the country, for numerous reasons.
These people are here and have to be dealt with. My original comment is that there has never been any real penalty for sneaking into this country so it's like giving amnesty to a parking violation. Not going to change our lives one way or another.
Agreed, but REWARDING criminal behavior won't STOP criminal behavior...it will INCREASE that behavior, not only with the illegals, but also those who employ them. (Would you reward your toddlers with snacks when they break your rules? What do you really think you're 'teaching' them when you do that but to keep doing the "bad" thing some more?)
California is the main magnet and they have proven time after time that they have no intention of enforcing the laws nor limiting the benefits.
Add to that Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Illinois, Colorado, New York....they may start in California and Texas, but illegals are throughout the United States, and throughout the United States, nothing is being done. Law enforcement won't pick them up because the Feds have basically told them not to, "unless they've committed a violent crime." Employers are not being fined much less imprisoned, for knowingly hiring illegals, much less verifying that they're legally allowed to work.
Whose boss is the Fed's? The Attorney General, who has ties with La Raza. La Raza is in favor of shamnesty and benefits and rights for illegals. Ultimately who's the boss? The President. Yet it's he who's in favor of rewarding the law breakers (via shamnesty, by chanting "just doing the work no American wants to do") and by castigating the Minute Men (i.e., calling them U.S. citizens vigilantes).
The President is merely trying to bring these guys into society and try and get a better handle on them.
The President doesn't have to "try" to do anything. He can take a pen and sign an executive ORDER, and the illegal problems could begin to be fixed. But he refuses.
Where there's a will, there's a way. The President and elected officials have neither when it comes to LEGAL IMMIGRATION.
Hooey. We were the first state to pass laws limiting benefits to illegal immigrants, and Republican's in this state have been paying, rightly or wrongly, the price for Pete Wilson campaigning on behalf of Prop 187 ever since. Before Prop 187, latino's hardly voted in large number (except probably Republican latinos), after Prop 187 passed Latino activists organized, and handed a large number of votes to the Democrats. Latino voters, who vote Democrat, have forever changed the political landscape in California, and THAT is the reason NOT white elitist liberals, that California remains a stronghold for Democrats.
Furthermore, it's not the state's responsibility to enforce Federal borders.
Finally, the rest of the country could give a crap that California was being overrun by illegals until we reached the saturation point, and they started invading the South, Midwest and Northeast.