[Arleigh]

...for a grand total of $30 million.

IMHO, this is how to frame the debate. I'd like to see somebody like Tancredo propose an "Guestworker Financial Impact Statement Law" whereby the states calculate how much Bush's proposal to give amnesty to 3.5 million illegal Mexicans will cost them - schools, healthcare, policing, traffic congestion, pollution - and bill the federal government. Money could come out of application fees for guestworker status and/or special taxes on those who employ them.

Companies who employ illegal aliens profit by paying them low wages and dumping the social costs on the rest of us. It's no different than dumping untreated pollution onto public land to save money.

[sarcasm]

I've seen estimates that the 1986 amnesty cost the taxpayers in excess of $ 80 billion - this was as of a few years ago and the cost was still climbing. Wonder why your tax rates are so high?

[junta]

Impact statement bump I live in a town that houses the illegal aliens who clean and mow the lawn of all those Republicans who complain about the xenophobia of all those conservative nasties, and of course we pay out the nose for the privilege.

[spanky_mcfarland]

Well put. Illegal immigration is a zero sum game...corporations get under market labor while citizens eat the bill.