Actually you are providing the straw man......there are many of us who do not think it’s either deport or legalization. We agree with you that attrition is the key....where you and I disagree is on where to start the attrition. I would start with the government....the hand outs. Why? Because these are far more damaging to our economy than the workers. AND because it was government that caused the problem....business is normally trying to survive the government caused problems (Ch of Commerce types notwithstanding....).
What handouts and to whom? You need to change laws like birthright citizenship and overturn SCOTUS decisions like Plyler vs Doe. We have plenty of laws that can be enforced that will result in deportation. There are over 600,000 absconders running around the country. They have been ordered by the immigration court to deport, but they haven't. The vast majority of the "kids" who entered last summer have never showed up for their court hearings.
This is unprecedented, yet scarcely anyone knows about it. The union mentioned among other things:
While ICE reports internally that more than 90 percent of ICE detainees are first encountered in jails after they are arrested by local police for criminal charges, ICE senior leadership misrepresents this information publicly in order to portray ICE detainees as being non-criminal in nature to support the Administration's position on amnesty and relaxed security at ICE detention facilities.
• The majority of ICE ERO Officers are prohibited from making street arrests or enforcing United States immigration laws outside of the institutional (jail) setting. This has effectively created "amnesty through policy" for anyone illegally in the United States who has not been arrested by another agency for a criminal violation.