(Legal) Immigrants often come here to work. Many of them are very bright and if they stay, the benefit America. But we also need to be training Americans to do jobs..

US corporations right now seem to be falling over each other to export the remaining good jobs that are not executive-level..

Illegal immigrants come here because their home countries economies are in crisis.. The reality is that they provide a safety valve that prevents those countries from falling apart otherwise.. That isn't always good... Its a complex issue..

The US business establishment is hypocritical, as they look the other way and hire illegal immigrants.. and at the same time use them to lower wages andd bust up unions..

I dont know what to say except we need some honesty and less bullshit..

The goal should be good jobs and higher wages for Americans first, then a reasonable immigration policy that maintains border security and at the same time, treats immigrants like people.. previous guest worker programs were engineered to create a class of captive low-wage workers.. and to keep wages for legal (citizen) workers low..

Illegal immigration is bad, bad, bad, for everyone.

It enslaves those illegals with low wages, poor living conditions, and working rights.

It drives down wages for low income Americans who are forced to "compete"

It depletes our revenues providing healthcare, and social services and education to illegals

It increases our vulnerability to attack to maintain porus borders intentionally.

It makes a mockery of our laws. If we are a nation of laws, good ones and bad ones, we must be duty bound to uphold them, and change them if necassary.

That all being said, Democrats need to get aggressive on this issue, this is the issue that wuold open up the south, and the south west to us finally.

We ought to have a comprehensive program to stop illegal immigration, including massive border security, substantive fines for employers hiring illegals.
And we must have an effective and policable immigration and worker program.

We need to stop pandering and start acting, the rewards are enourmous, and not just politically.

I would greatly expand (quadruple, maybe more) the number of people allowed to legally immigrate.

Then, I would end or significantly curtail guest worker programs, H1B's, etc.  I want future citizens, not temporary migrants who will eventually go back to thier home countries.

Then, I would crack down HARD on the illegals already here-deport them in mass numbers.  They would be eligible to apply for the vastly increased numbers of legal immigrant spots-but they would have to apply for them at our embassies in thier home countries, and would have to wait in line with everybody else, with no favorism or anti-favorism given to them.

It is a complex issue-of course-the immigrants, as they always have, largely represent the most ambitious and hard-working of their countries of origin.  This, of course, is also a generalization.  So we have to look at, in today's America, what are the effects of immigration, both legal and illegal?  We must not look at this issue with nostalgic eyes, or as part of an elite liberal ideology of "how nice it is to have all this diversity here in America."

This is usually down by affluent suburbanites whose only dealing with immigrants is when they clean their McMansions, or nanny their bratty McKids.  The rest of the country is clearly suffering under a regime of unfettered immigration-both legal and illegal.  Despite all the talk that immigrants are only working at jobs that Americans won't do, that is untrue.  I myself have worked in restaurants as a cook and dishwasher, trying to bide the tough economic times out until things get better here in Michigan. I am a native-born American with a college education.

Millions more of us are struggling to get by-as corporate America which has bought out the entire Republican Party and over half of the Democratic Party through its lobbyists and special favors and bribes has trampled down the working class and lower-middle classes in this country.  Unions are busted, good paying blue-collar jobs are vanishing and almost extinct-now the so-called "knowledge" jobs which were supposed to take their place are being out-sourced.  The wages paid by the jobs remaining are being dragged down by the hordes of immmigrants willing to work for close to slave labor-just to get their foot in the door in America.  

Services denied to many Americans, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, are being given to these people.  Churches and non-profits, oblivious to the suffering of the native population, are aiding in the enabling of illegal immigration.

If Democrats think immigration is a panacea to take back power, then why, during the 1990's, and with the first decade of the 21st century, when immigration is occurring at record levels, do we have all 3 branches of the government controlled by Republicans.  Why are Hispanics trending Republican, with Bush almost doubling his share of the Hispanic vote over 2000?

Liberals need to get out of their little comfortable cocoons of affluence in academia and government or whereever it is they still exist, and start to speak for the American people again-the ones born in this country, whose parents died in its World Wars, often at the hands of nationals who are no flooding into this country in record numbers, yes, taking away jobs from American citizens.

The point I was making is that the liberal ideology in charge of the Democratic elites has since the 1960's at least favored massive immigration.  This has been hugely detrimental to working class, poor and lower middle-class Americans whose votes they used to get.

If by treating illegal immingrants like "human beings" you mean giving them the full array of social welfare benefits, rather them giving them the boot they so richly deserve, I disagree with that.

Illegals should be deported and forced to apply for entry to this country through legal channels.  Anything else is unfair to the millions of immigrants who have stood in line, often for years, waiting for their status to be legal and allowed to enter this country officially and legally.

I stand my my statements, the hordes of immigration, both of a legal and illegal variety, is a detriment to poor and working class and even middle class native born Americans. Not to mentio the national security issues in a post-9 11 era.    

You make a lot of fine points.  One suspects that we are largely in agreement on this issue.  I am not hard-hearted enough to deny any human being the chance to be seen at a hospital, have their kids educated and fed, etc.  Yes, the two major parties are largely corporate pawns.  Its too bad that treating the immigrants decently only encourges more of them to come, and the more that come the harder it is on the rest of American workers-since the demise of the labor movement and worker-friendly Democrats like FDR and LBJ, since they have no one in power to protect their interests.

A sad state of affairs, but  that is what the Repulicans always do, divide and conquer.