[Sabertooth]

If those currently illegaly in the country, but who are working and who have committed no other crimes than illegal entry and who have not received any welfare are instead tracked into a guest worker program with no chance of citizenship, I'll take that deal.

Here's one problem with your plan:

You say that we can't patrol our borders now. That's with no Amnesty. Past experience with Amnesties and common sense tell us that if your plan succeeds, we'll have even more Illegals crossing the border. Since you don't have a plan to stop them now, you won't have a plan to stop them then.

What will your response be to the next wave of Illegals that your Amnesty invites?

I can only guess that it will be another Amnesty, since the border problem will only be more insurmountable.

How is that really different than having an open border?

[hchutch]

Well, if you looked at Post 145, you'd notice I support the Gekas bill's authorization and funding for 8,000 additional Border Patrol agents over eight years, although I wouldn't mind boosting that total to 16,000 (2,000 per year), while also doubling the number of INS investigators that would be authorized (500 per year, total of 4,000 as opposed to 2,000).

That would be a pretty good start in securing the border, don't you think?

And 4,000 more investigators means we can track down a lot more businesses that would hire illegals after a partial amnesty, wouldn't it?

Of course, we'd have to work pretty hard to make sure that all of that authorized strength would be funded every year, but I'd be willing to fight alongside you on that front.

I'll back that full-tilt.