Illegal immigration is a different topic from immigration.
See the other
topic under "Immigration".
Immigration is sort what the Mayflower stuff
was since there was no one here (?) to meet them when they arrived.
Everything
after that is technically "illegal immigration".
Everybody came here
from somewhere. Even the Native Americans 13,000 years ago.
Imagine two Mastodons
talking "Well, there go the property values."
Illegal immigration is likened to be akin to breaking and entering or trespass.
This
can be parsed finer however.
Imagine someone dives through your unlocked window
because there's a mountain lion hot on their heels.
Now, imagine someone dives
through your unlocked window to grab your TV, jewelry, clean out the fridge etc.
So,
if someone knows there are death squads awaiting them and they sneak across the border
that's comparable to a mountain lion.
That's a bit different from someone who
decides they're tired of picking cantelopes for $3 per day and up north can get $30
per day.
In any event, the question arises, did they exhaust normal channels and
means of entry before "diving through the window"?
That said, there are illegal aliens among us.
(This author's from Tralfamador
or is it Nabu?).
And it requires a solution.
Obviously some people's first
choice is to round them up and shoot them or catapult them back over the border.
But
who would do all the nasty work immigrants do? Ever asked a middle-class teen-ager
to clean gutters? Ain't gonna happen.
So if someone has been here a number of
years, paid taxes, raised decent children (likely born here and are citizens),
not
on welfare and working too hard to go join ISIS, maybe they have become what is envisioned
as a "good citizen".
Maybe they add to our culture. Maybe they add to
our economy. Some of them end up being our friends (or in-laws).
What to do?
We
are a nation of laws. We have to uniformly obey the laws (unless you are rich or
a corporation).
If we don't obey the laws, they become vacuous and meaningless.
Here's what needs to happen.
A law was broken (illegal crossing of the borders).
The
law-breaker needs to turn themselves in, NOT be incarcerated,
provide a clean
bill of health (disregarding the heinous crime of improper lane usage), and THEN
(and here is the cruel part),
take that same gawd-awful American Government class
you took in high school to get your diploma.
And they have to pay a fine. Not
a big fine, but something to cover the administrative costs, since they were uninvited.
("Give
me your tired, your poor, yearning to be free...")
Then, after a grace period,
they can have a green card.
Then, after another grace period, they can take the
test and the oath to defend the Constitution and be citizens.
Can't get through
that process? Asta la vista.
Criminal? Asta la vista.
Elderly, infirm etc.
Americans are really old softies. Welcome.
Why is this necessary?
Rule of law.
Breaking the law has a cost.
Show
that we forgive (after the fine is paid).
Satisfy that segment of the political
establishment who would round them up and make catfood of them.
(Nothing will
satisy them anyway, our conscience is clear for having tried.)