You ask me what my point is, as if we have not been discussing the real issue for several years now.The issue is what to do with the estimated 12 million people who live and work in this country and have no legal documentation.
The border security issue is being dealt with as budgets double and trained border officers come on line. They also have a big internal bribe and fraud issue that they are working on daily.
The real issue is not the border security, although huge efforting by pundits like Hannity try to shift it in that direction. We all agree on stronger border security, including Bush, as he has stated over and over again to totally deaf ears!
No amount of diversion will change the primary disagreement and the reasons for the demonstrations. It is the people who are here!
This is where the crap hits the fan and one side refuses to even consider any other alternative but removal, and the other side says, no way, no how, not in a million years.....
Not only is that impractical, but it would create a despotic underclass that would cause social disruptions from here to eternity.
Bush thinks the best way is a expanded worker visa program with security as a prime subject. He thinks the eligible people should go to the rear of the line and the criminal element deported. At the same time, with much improved border security and a few dozen changes in business regs, we can control the burgeoning problem.
I think he is right, but I'm not going to listen to people telling me to first close the borders, because we can't. They will just go around, under or through, or they will begin transiting through Canada or the coasts.
You must deal with the demand side of the problem, or you will have failure after failure after failure, just like the war on drugs. A one legged or two legged stool cannot stand up. Neither will border security alone.
To paraphrase Pogo: we have met the demand side problem, and it is us. Illegals are firmly entrenched in every industry and in every phase of the value-chain in the US economy for one reason: they appear to provide P&L savings while masking their true long-term balance sheet costs.
This type of smoke & mirrors is routinely practiced by governments, businesses and citizens alike. Witness the number of refinanced mortgages used to buy depreciating assets like autos, boats, etc.
The only real value of illegals to us is that they remain illegal; once they're legalized, they no longer provide the short-term P&L benefits that appear to attractive and irrestible.
So, we can't legalize, deport and/or otherwise encourage them to leave by their own volition without having a tremendous inflationary effect on our economy.
As it turns out, we're also currently embroiled in a WoT that threatens to escalate to nuclear confrontation. The smart money knows that the status quo will be retained - for better or worse, we're locked in a death embrace with our southern neighbor.