What should we do with the illegal immigrants in our country?

i don’t know…. what did they do with the illegal immigrants that founded this country?
Whatever happened to “Give me your poor, your weak, your huddled masses”?
does that no longer apply?

Nothing.

Except if they are caught breaking the law in a substantial way, then I suggest sending them back. No witch hunts.

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More importantly, we need to fix the legal immigration process. It’s ridiculously complicated, expensive, and downright perverse.

@robmandu Amen to that! If they weren’t so convoluted and expensive, I’d be moving my fiance here instead of leaving the country to be with him. Thanks for funding most of my education, America!...I’ll be utilizing that education elsewhere.

- Allow them to continue working and paying taxes
– Encourage them to assimilate and become citizens, if they so desire
– Protect them from exploitation
– Screen them carefully and fairly to comply with security needs

I have little sympathy for people who come here illegally. First of all, if it’s “illegal,” they shouldn’t be here and the law should be enforced. Secondly, it’s unfair to those who go through the process of coming here legally. If we want to remain a sovereign nation, we need to enforce our damn laws.

I really get pissed when you speak out against illegal immigration and some take it as if you are against all immigrants. My mom came here from Ireland and she did it legally. Big difference!

I bet if we make it legal no one will wanna do it anymore

The economics of illegal immigration are extraordinarily complex. On the one hand, they do use resources that could go to citizens and legalized aliens. On the other hand, many pay taxes (so they should get something in return). Furthermore, many perform jobs that, it seems, few Americans are willing to do (like migrant farm work, for example). These workers don’t make much money (they are illegal, after all), and since their salaries are low, the lower prices for things like fruits and vegetables and fast food are passed on to us. So, it is difficult to gauge whether illegal immigrants are a financial drain or boon to our economy. I for one think there should be a loosening of immigration requirements.

First and foremost, we need to treat them like human beings.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic: I just want to GA you again and again for that.

I wish I knew where I read this—but I once saw an article about how illegal aliens who get jobs using phony SSN’s contribute huge amounts of unclaimable tax money to the govt. I don’t know how that works, but I do feel that if illegal immigrants threatened the financial stability of large corporations and/or politicians, someone would come up with an effective way to stop illegal immigration. As many downsides as there are to having illegals in our country, the financial upside must be big enough to keep things from changing or they would have already changed.

@EmpressPixie Thank you.
Where I live I hear this discussion a lot. A lot of people dehumanize illegal immigrants and blame them for the country’s problems. Unity is the way to go forward.

I’ll admit that there are no great solutions to this problem. All ideas that I’ve heard floated have serious downsides. But my thoughts are based on the following precept: we should do what results in the least amount of human suffering.

We’re a nation of laws, true. It’s tempting to say that there should be no flexibility or exceptions in how those laws are applied because it would relieve us of having to deal with the ambiguities of the true human reality in all its complexity. The law thus becomes an alibi for our collective conscience. But law applied in this mechanical fashion diminishes us in the end. When we find that law is at odds with our basic human sensibilities in a given situation, that’s a sign that we may need to question the law.

In this case, it seems clear to me that the course of least suffering is that those who have demonstrated a willingness to be constructive members of our society be allowed to stay. If their only transgression is having come here illegally, and they have no criminal convictions or warrants in their countries of origin, I’d be willing to give them the benefit of a doubt. Yes, they’ve broken a law by coming here; but most have harmed no one in the process, do not take more than they contribute to our society, and are only looking for the same thing all of our ancestors came here for. That hardly speaks ill of them as potential citizens. Give most of them a shot at living a law-abiding life and I think they’ll be more than happy to.

I’m somewhat sympathetic to the argument that this is unfair to those who have applied for residence legally. But the true source of their hardship lies in the fact that we have set up an immigration system that takes almost 20 years to negotiate. I’ll start listening to those who use the “unfairness” argument when they start working to make the legal route a more workable option. Until then, I’ll just assume that they’re more interested in keeping foreigners out than in fairness. This impossibly cumbersome system is the cause of much of the illegal traffic in the first place.

Trying to send illegals back would inevitably have a tremendous human cost, and I’m not convinced that anything would improve for our society as a result.

@PupnTaco
How do you screen an illegal?

I feel if they are here illegally then they need to be exploited or deported.

If they want to be assimilated then they can come in legally.

Most work under the table. How do we get them to pay income taxes?

@rawpixels
My feelings exactly. ;)

I live in Arizona and there is a lot of animosity here toward illegals coming from Mexico. It’s been my own observations most of these illegal people are working, paying taxes, buying goods and funding start up legitimate business that help the economy. In fact, Arizona learned a valuable lesson when illegal crackdowns got heavy last year and about the same time the local economy took a big dump: several GM brand dealerships closed and said their biggest number of buyers had been Mexicans. Foods for thought.