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"That is only your opinion for which you'll find many disagreeing with."

No it's not just my opinion.

Our unemployment rate is at 5%.

We have a civilain labor force of about 150 million with around 7.5 million people unemployed.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

An employment leve of zero is unreachable and it's really hard to maintain an unemployment level much more than a percentage poit below what it is now.

If we remove all the illegal aliens that are working in the country, we suddently have millions less workers than we have jobs.

That means the economy has to shrink as those businesses have to make do with less workers or simply go out of business.

"The last 40 years have seen us take in over 40 million people, and that's just legally."

Is that permenant residents? People who become citizens? Does it include people on work visas? How about student visas?

Some people also die off or leave the country over a 40 year period.

From my quick glance it appears that there are significantly less than a million new people granted permenant residency in the US each year, I have a hard time believing that we've added 40 million to our population through immigration in the last 40 years, which is different than saying 40 million people were allowed to come to the US and stay for some period of time. It's hard to discuss this without more details about your numbers.

"Even if all immigration were to completely stop tomorrow there are more than enough ample studies which demonstrate the birth rate would continue to increase for the next 50 years."

So there are plenty of studies that show that if we stopped immigration our birth rates would reverse their 15 year trend of decreasing birth rates and increase? That's a pretty astounding statement. Please point me to some of these "studies" that would appear to contradict all the data I've found available.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aabirthrate.htm

"So then why do we need more legal immigration than the current 1 million annually we already take in? Will our economy collapse without it"

Collapse? Kind of a vague and scary word. The economy would take a serious hit. You don't suddenly remove millions of workers from an economy with low unemployment without very significant results.

In this case we are talking about removing primarily workers that work in low paying jobs.

What are the results likely to be? Well inflation to be sure. Tight labor markets result in higher wages as employers compete for a limited pool of workers.

However, it's also likely to result in an even greater trade deficit and a lot of jobs no longer being performed in the US. Considering that our trade deficit is already out of control, this is a very bad thing.

A shrinking economy also means less tax revenues for the government. That means that not only do we end up paying more for goods due to inflation, the government will either have to shrink their spending, or raise our taxes. How likely do you think it is that the government will decrease spending on entitlement programs just because the economy is shrinking.

Low end workers will be making more money, but inflation will either destroy any real gains, or inflation is being kept in check by importing more goods which helps short term, but damages our economy long term.

The other possiblity of a solution to a smaller work force without serious economic penalties is technology advances. We have in the past and will in the future develop technology that allows us to do more with less workers. There are industries where that technology could be developed, but it simply isn't cost effective because cheap labor is available.

There are a few problems with that approach that limit how well it can address the problem.

Such technology takes a considerable investment to develop. Research and development budgets are among the first things to get slashed when the economy starts shrinking. This slows the development process and prolongs the problem.

Developing such technology is also a risky business. It has a considerable chance of being unprofitable by the time development is completed due to imported goods, or changes in politics that make cheap labor available again. This does not prevent such advances, but it does slow them and limit their impact.

"what is the motivation driving this constant push to raise immigration levels, particularly in DC?"

I'm sure there is a wide range of motivations on this topic. There are many secial interest groups involved. However, the economy appears to be the largest motivator.

America's power stems from it's economic power. If the economy doesn't remain strong, we can't support our military, we reduce our ability to influence others economicly, we trend toward joing Europe in insignificance while countries like China grow in power.

Even liberals know that someone needs to be there to do the work and that shrinking the economy limits their ability to spend other people's money.

Now I have a question for you. Assuming that we do reasonable background checks on immigrants and deport those who commit crimes or don't contribute to the economy, what is the harm in allowing immigration to meet the needs of our economy? Even Bush's weak guest worker program requires that immigrants be matched with a job before being granted entry.

I think that it's been pretty clearly shown that there is a benefit to ur economy to allowing immigration if there are jobs to justify it. However, your arguments seemed more anti-immigrant in genveral rather than just being against illegal immigrants. Are you opposed to legal immigration as long as we are talking about immigrants that are comming here to work?

If so, can you explain why?

Collapse? Kind of a vague and scary word. The economy would take a serious hit. You don't suddenly remove millions of workers from an economy with low unemployment without very significant results.

So what you're basically saying is that assuming illegal immigration finally gets under control unless we massively increase legal immigration in the process the economy will take a serious hit?

First of all do you realize how many millions of illegals aren't really contributing to the economy at all but rather work under the table in odd jobs such as maids, gardeners, babysitters or standing on street corners waiting to be picked up by cheap contractors? Suddenly removing them would not be the shock that so many like yourself wish to keep claiming however that doesn't have to be necessary. The reduction in the illegal population could be done gradually through attrition so those employers addicted to the cheap labor would have to learn to live without it.

As far as legal immigration: we would still be taking in around a million a year, more than all the other countries of the world combined, where some like Japan have basically zero immigration and are doing just fine economically. I'd say we're already quite generous.

To suggest we keep levels at the current rate is "anti-immigrant" is not an argument or defense for increasing it but a way to silence those who find immigration policy should not be based solely on economic needs but that other factors, such as the social costs, including those related to schools, hospitals and prisons that are all needed for this never-ending massive population you want to import be also taken into consideration.

This may shock both you and George Bush as libertarians but the US is not an economy or a shopping mall, it's a nation where immigration policy should be based on the needs of all its citizens and their communities, not just those of the immigrants and the employers who want them.