[South40]

They have to do more than *say* they have a job; they actually have to have one.

So it applies to any and all who can get someone to hire them. Employers will have the option of hiring an American at a decent wage or an ILLEGAL at the minimum, it's easy to see how easily they will find jobs.

And the fact that there are conditions to their being able to stay means this is not blanket amnesty.

No, the fact that it applies to ALL ILLEGALS means it is blanket.

But why am I arguing the point? You're incapable of hearing.

I hear just fine. The better question is why am I arguing the point with someone who is either uninformed, in denial, or both.

[Wolfstar]

Every day on my way to and from work here in the L.A. area, I pass a Home Depot. Outside the fence, day after day, in all kinds of weather, illegal Mexican men hang out to try to catch a day job. If they do get one, they are paid in cash and probably at a rate lower than minimum wage.

There is a fire station directly across the street from where the men hang out. Not far away, there is a Highway Patrol HQ. Both LAPD and the Sheriff's Dept. patrol the area. Just around the corner there is an L.A. school bus depot. And the men hang out just outside the wall of a new county yard where they auction off impounded vehicles.

All of that local officialdom immediately around the site where these guys hang out, and no one does anything about the men. Heck, I'd wager that many's the cop or fireman who hires these guys for jobs at their own homes.

Therein lies the heart of the problem. For generations, the border states and their local governments have tacitly encouraged Mexican migration while explicitly preventing local law enforcement from doing anything to arrest and deport the illegals. State and local governments do not want to do anything about the problem, which has now become all but intractable. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of ethnic Mexicans here in Southern California. In order to round up, identify and deport the illegals, you'd have to round up all ethnic Mexicans — even those who have been here for generations and are American citizens. That would be unconstitutional.

The biggest problem I have with the President's proposal is not the guest-worker part. That seems to me to be humane given the facts on the ground. My problem with it is that it doesn't contain any solid approach to stem the flow of illegal immigration. If the Congress were able to produce a bill that included genuine, hard-nosed provisions to stem the flow, I could support such a bill even if it preserved the guest-worker plan.

But despite my reservations about this proposal, one thing I NEVER will do is withdraw my support from this President.