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No, so why bother having a rule against hitting if you reward them for that very behavior?

That's a false analogy because you're rewarding the exact same person who will engage in future violations. Your analogy also contains no additional disincentive for the person to engage in that conduct. That's not the case with amnesty for illegal aliens.

The primary reason I would be willing to accept amnesty isn't because I think its a "good" idea on its own, but because its something I'd have to give up as part of a compromise to get proper border enforcement.

One small virtue to amnesty is that it would create a better database to control present and future immigration. Right now, illegals go to all length to avoid immigration authorities. That means they are completely unregistered and can move in society without being tracked. If you did an amnesty, then the current crop of illegals have an incentive to register officially, and give us some clue as to how many we have. And if you coupled an amnesty with significantly greater employer penalties for hiring illegals who haven't been granted amnesty, you make it much tougher for "new" illegals to get jobs.

? That's a false analogy because you're rewarding the exact same person who will engage in future violations. Your analogy also contains no additional disincentive for the person to engage in that conduct. That's not the case with amnesty for illegal aliens.

No, it's not false. A group of people, similarly situated, observe and process and make decisions based upon what happened to others in their similar circumstances. Rules/laws are in place to allow for punishment when they're broken. The psychology behind this is two-fold: 1) to allow for punishment, directly, to the law-breaker; and 2) to act as a DETERRENT to others. Role modeling means something. When enforcement of laws/rules are consistently applied to the few who break them, it acts as a deterrent to those who may be THINKING about doing it themselves.

One small virtue to amnesty is that it would create a better database to control present and future immigration. Right now, illegals go to all length to avoid immigration authorities.

And they will CONTINUE to break more laws, whether providing fraudulent documents or going further out of the clutches of INS....what illegal alien within the U.S., who is a criminal element within their native country, would ever out themselves to the INS?

One small virtue to amnesty is that it would create a better database to control present and future immigration.

Sorry xJarhead, but that is not true. We met with the former head of immigration last night, and he clearly pointed out this is going to create a far bigger nightmare with fewer complete records.