no one is going to be deported at the point of a gun, except for the criminal element amongst them.
what we need to do is provide the right incentives for them to deport themselves - and that means you have to go after US employers, and of course stop new entrants with border security.
frankly, some of the 12 million should be legalized - I would legalize those with american citizen children and those who own their own homes - we are not going to deport those people anyway, and those segments would likely make good citizens anyway. so as part of a compromise, I would concede those segments.
If you legalize those with homes and U.S Citizen children, you'll be signing on to them bringing over a number of immediate family members as well. Couple that with large birth rates and still more people being allowed in through guest worker programs, and you'll have actually increased the numbers of people sucking our system dry.
I'm sorry, but it's time to get serious about this. Allow folks to sell their homes and move back to Mexico. If they do that, they should live quite comfortably down there. And that's were Mexican nationals belong.