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"Why is it always teh (sic) "conservative" individuals who live in the midwest or parts of the interior northeast (adding liberals of other regions, of course) who always talk about the values of immigration, and how it is working today."

I disagree with your premise. Free traders from all over the country should recognize the value of legal immigration. I used to live back east, in a city that had one of the highest per capita Hispanic populations in the country. I was amazed that when I moved to Pittsburgh 12 years ago that when they talked about "immigrants" they were talking about Russian or Ethiopian Jews. Better chance of hearing Polish/Italian/Russian or Slovak on the streets of Pittsburgh than you do Spanish. So I know about both extremes. But I digress.

Most people that are opposed to free trade are the labor union types that are worried about their low-skill jobs going to another country. Well, guess what: if the cost of labor in this country were cheaper, all other things being equal, those jobs would stay here. But in the same breath the unions will say they need higher wages. Well - talk about having my cake and eating yours too!

I am opposed to illegal immigration, but for giving amnesty to people that have been in the country for more than 10 years. I mean, if they have been here for that long, might as well get them paying taxes! And face it, most immigrants work jobs that most citizens would not want to do. Do you want to pick strawberries and make 5 bucks an hour for backbreaking labor? I doubt it. Yes, I don't want them coming to this country illegally and taking advantage of social services and such.

I'm against free trade, as it is another piece of the puzzle in the destruction of the United States. It's the economic piece, of which leads to deindustrialization and an import economy that plays heavily into a trade imbalance, inflation and higher taxation. Furthermore, unemployment rates among native-born Americans also rise.

As far as illegals go, they should not be here. Who cares if they've been here for ten years, they have no business being in our country. All you've indicated is that we have an unresponsive, illegitimate government of which is "Selling us down the river".

One of these days, even you'll realize that third world immigration and free trade is bad for America. However, unfortunately, it may be too late by then.

Neocon money guy. Nice arguments for the liberals. Your arguments are pure liberal shell gamesmanship. We need the illegal immigrants for our own version of slave labor, right here in the United States. Illegals are good for the bottom line. A pragmatic, selfish, cynical, short term view, and without wisdom.

You disrespect the illegals because in your system, immigrants are automatically bottom rung strawberry pickers. You disrespect native born teenagers and others by demeaning hard labor. One of the reasons the teenagers of this countries' "white" people are so soft and lazy and morally lost is that they haven't had to do any type of this hard labor. It is "beneath them" to work hard for $5.75 an hour.

You disrespect the laws of this country by allowing that if an immigrant can simply break the law for 10 years or more, then they will have "earned" thier freedom from indentured servitude and recieve an "amnesty". Cynical and hypocritical.

It is the American culture and value system that is being displaced and forgotten. That is what this issue is about. Not how much a company's profit can be increased in order to make wall street happy, and thereby funding all the hippies' 401k plans. But I digress.