We used to have a formal guest worker program in this country and it was quite successful. There really are jobs Americans won’t do, or jobs that are located so far from population centers that US citizens aren’t going to get them. (An unemployed inner-city person is not going to move to the vegetable fields of California to get a $7-an-hour job.)
Nothing wrong with bringing in some foreign people to harvest crops on a temporary, non-exploitative basis, then sending them home when the season is over. No “coyotes”, gangs, etc., no holding them prisoner in miserable camps, no pregnant women, no kids. Preference in jobs given to US citizens if any apply for them. The brasero program used to bring in men to work seasonally, then sent them back. We did this when I was a kid and it worked out well for everybody.
I have no tolerance at all for illegals, but I sympathize with kids who were brought here by their parents and grew up here. There ought to be a path to citizenship for them. If they do some service—military service, or some civilian service opportunity for girls, for those guys who don’t qualify for military service on medical grounds, or for the specially talented. If they prove they’re devoted enough to this country to give of themselves in order to become citizens, then they should have the chance to apply for citizenship.
I do think we have to do something about “birthright citizenship.”
Perhaps a requirement that both parents have to be here on a non-temporary basis, either as a legal permanent resident, a naturalized citizen, etc.
“I have no tolerance at all for illegals, but I sympathize with kids who were brought here by their parents and grew up here. There ought to be a path to citizenship for them. If they do some service—military service, or some civilian service opportunity for girls, for those guys who don’t qualify for military service on medical grounds, or for the specially talented. If they prove they’re devoted enough to this country to give of themselves in order to become citizens, then they should have the chance to apply for citizenship.”
You realize, of course, that your “plan” will ultimately result in a complete transformation of this country to an analog of Mexico! It may happen anyway. The Hispanics are reproducing in this country at a rate that is a multiple of the rest of the population. As soon as the transformation is complete, they will, as they already have here in California, become the de facto leadership and the result will be a country that looks like everything South of the Border. There are very few, if any Hispanics who have any real affinity for the US. They are just a pack of undereducated leeches who have come here in an act of basic self-preservation and most owe there allegiance to Mexico or wherever they came from.
If they are hungry they will. Some of us remember "The Great Okie March."