The employers that use illegal workers should be punished for avoiding federal laws. If the government can find illegal plants growing in a hippy's backyards, they should be able to find oranges and lettuce.

It's like the Irish in the 19th Century. That immigration didn't destroy us either.

In the 19th Century, the Irish (as well as other immigrants) had to have medical exams to be sure they weren't sick when they entered; they had to give the name of a sponsor who was going to see they had a place to live and help them until they found a job.....you can't compare the illegal crossings taking place at the numbers they are to the past.

Despite the fact the Irish immigration and the Chinese immigration contributed to making this a better country, the radical anti-immigration fanatics don't learn. Despite low unemployment, low and decreasing level of poverty and the highest real per capita GDP in the history of the US, they continue complaining.

When illegal aliens are costing your state $4.7 billion or $9 billion, you as a taxpayer have a right to bitch. There is a huge difference in the legal immigration you are mentioning above and the illegal immigration that most people are angry about.

There's also the issue of assimilating into our culture, crime and gangs, the downward pressure on the wages our low hourly wage workers do, poverty, the simple fact that it's a crime in and of itself and as for the border -- the potential terrorist corridor we're leaving wide open.

Sure, some are just plain racist, but those people oppose all immigration. Most Americans want orderly, legal immigration that doesn't flood our health services and hospitals to closure with an overabundance of unplanned and uninsured people, flood our schools with 40 children to a class when it should be about 28 and congest our streets with a bunch of day laborers who have no choice because they can't go thrugh a temp agency or other traditional channels to get work.

So your comparison between legal and illegal is totally incorrect. As the people that are footing the bill we should have some say in these matters.

As for the employers as Tommy mentioned above -- they should be vigorously hunted down.

Just like drugs, busting the user doesn't do a whole lot to stem the problem. Busting the dealer is where it's at. We have laws on the books, but they aren't enforced.

The current situation is like a cop catching a major drug dealer red handed and giving him a tip of the hat rather than arresting him.

U.S. Citizens are stupid. Illegal Immigrants do the jobs that U.S. citizens don't want to do. Like picking fruit in Yakima, WA for $5 a basket, picking cabbage in 110F weather for minimum wages, working in services industry for minimum wages which all American benefit from.

You arrest all the illegal immigrants and replace them with a "legal" workforce who will demand more money, higher wages which we will all pay for in the long run as they raise the prices of food, services to compensate for the cost of higher wages.

As far as illegal immigrants costing the tax payer money!!! WTF!! Illegals use a fake name and Social Security that do not match, so at years end they don't get an IRS refund.

Has anyone ever asked what happens to the 8 million x (average refund of $1500) = 1,500,000,000 that never gets paid out by the IRS???

Interesting question here.

Do non-American poiticians have to be "politically correct" ?

My interpretation of the comment was that it is typical of America to dumpthe least desired work on the least desired population. But there are jobs that even those at the bottom of the US socio-economic scale are no longer willing to peform. SO the US now has to import an entire new group group of "lowest class" employees.

Am I saying that blacks, or browns or greens or any other color are different in potential - of course not. I AM saying that you are lying to yourself and others if you are spouting that all are treated equally and afforded equal opportunity in America.

Don't like that - then change it. Don;t argue with it being said out loud, change it. FT posters represent a disproportionately high group on the socio- economic scale. Who have you mentored at work? Who have you helped to lift up? Ever wonder why the airports, and possibly your office are disproportionately black free?

I think the President of Mexico did the one thing Americans never forgive others for - he held up a mirror.