Cut all benefits to illegals...ALL...without jobs...self deport would rid this country of most illegals. I know some areas in the USA...especially since the economy has gone on the skids is now like a ghost town...illegal mexicans, and others from central and south America have left for home. Illegals businesses that were supported by the illegals have had to close down.
Exactly. There is no need for a $3 Billion Fence than can be climbed over in 20 seconds or blow-torched through in 20 minutes.
A few years ago, I spent a month driving around the Yucatan in Mexico on vacation with my family to see the jungles and the Mayan ruins.
As the road came near the Guatemala-Mexico border, I saw how Mexico was controlling their border. There was no Fence but there was a Mexican Army roadblock manned by Mexican soldiers with M-16's. They glanced at me and made a quick mental checklist: White. Blue eyes. Blond kids. Not Mestizo. Not Indio. They waved me right on through without a word.
Was I "racially profiled"? I sure was.
The next day, we were at some beach cabanas and I was talking to the Mexican owner in Spanish. Since I am Cuban-born and fluent in Spanish, he was more open with me than he might have been with some other American tourist.
"Todo este problema con los ilegales en los Estados Unidos es la culpa de los Americanos", he told me. ("All this problem with the illegals in the U.S. is the fault of los Americanos").
I asked him why.
"Because los Americanos are hypocrites. On the one hand, they whine and moan that they are being flooded with illegals and they don't want them. But then, when an illegal gets to the U.S., they give him a drivers license, they give him welfare, they give him medical care, they give him jobs,..."
The Mexican was absolutely right.
As you observed, the solution is pretty simple. If you chum the fish, the fish will come. If there is no food, the fish will leave.
It is pretty basic Behavioral Biology.