If there are no real solutions until the situation is extreme, and affecting everyone, those solutions will be extreme. Close the border with Mexico. Jail and fine employers who knowingly hire illegals, or lie about the need for H1B Visa employees. Rescind permission for legals to be here if their jobs can be filled by qualified US citizens. Cut down on the size of the government and connect that with lower taxes.
The GWB seems to be buying the theory that a less-taxed corporate/rich US will improve the situation. They'll just send jobs overseas to increase their bottom line to increase dividends for their large stockholders (middle class, yuh, sure). Instead, it's new businesses that should get breaks. The history of US economic growth is innovation. Too many of todays potential innovators are waiting tables to survive. Look at history. Any civilization that flourished had a large segment of people who had the health, food, education, and time to innovate.
You make a lot of good points. Temporarily ending the H1-B program would cut the unemployment numbers by over one million and put all of our technical americans back to work. The other jobs that the foreign wives and their relatives of the million H1-B visa people also have, would also be available for more americans. Deporting 10 million illegals would create a huge demand for jobs in America(the tens of thousands of layoffs from restaurants and bar as mentioned in the article, would be more than overshadowed by the number of jobs opening up for Americans.
Bush would win re-election in a landslide, and the republican party would control the elections for decades(like Roosevelt did) by employing Americans and putting them back to work.
There was a time when we needed record immigration, back when our country was empty, when the homestead acts created a huge demand for new families moving here, when the west was undeveloped and unpopulated, when anyone who wanted to work could find work, etc.
To let in record number of immigrants at a time when skilled americans cannot find work, or when our cities, and highways are clogged with too many people, is crazy(except for the democrats).