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Illegality begats illegality, and once you start debating the amnesty stuff this becomes pretty clear, it's the same as throwing most of our workplace and identification laws out the window.

In principle, you are correct. That's what's depressing. We pretty much have to accept the situation. 8 to 10 million people are just too many to punish or deport. The only thing we can do in the long run is legalize them. We need to do it wisely, though, not another blanket amnesty like we've had in the past with no change in the current situation of lax border enforcement.

We pretty much have to accept the situation. 8 to 10 million people are just too many to punish or deport.

That defense is ridiculous.

It reminds me of another ridiculous defense about Medicare fraud I heard a Congresscritter say about 10 years ago. He was asked about Medicare fraud and what Congress would do about it. He responded that it was only $400 million in fraud and it would cost MORE to try to stop it than the fraud is, so his recommendation was to do nothing (ie, let it continue). [That is our tax dollars that were then, and are still, being defrauded.]

8 to 10 million people are just too many to punish or deport.

Those are gov't figures, and as such should be taken with a grain of salt. It's usually pretty safe to multiply any figure by 3 that the gov't deems in their best interest to keep low. ...for public consumption.

So I'd put that figure at closer to 30 million.

The only thing we can do in the long run is legalize them.

No, the best thing we can do is to cut off all their social freebies and prosecute employers who hire them. Millions of them would then head back to their homeland.

"We pretty much have to accept the situation. 8 to 10 million people are just too many to punish or deport. The only thing we can do in the long run is legalize them."

We don't have to accept anything of the sort. All that is required is the will to enforce our exisiting immigration laws (remember those?). No rewarding of law breakers. Ever.

The only thing we can do in the long run is legalize them. We need to do it wisely, though

After we secure the border and start punishing employers for hiring illegals I am going to be willing to talk about this and in principle I believe "wisely" is the operative word.

Rather than amnesty I think we should punish them. They should face a steep fine. Rather than sending $50 billion in remittances home they should be coughing up maybe $10 thousand a piece payable in installments of $1000 per year.

They should also work a couple thousand hours of community service.

They should also plead guilty to a felony and receive a 10 year suspended, non-appealable automatic deportation order to come into force if they committ any further crime more serious than a speeding ticket or if they fail to pay their fine or perform their community service.

They should be given permanent residence but never be given full citizenship or the right to vote.

We need to send the message to the world that the worst way to come to America is illegally. I would probably treat children who were brought here as minors a little less harshly but we need to be careful not to offer benefits that become an incentive for parents to break our laws.