Controversial Topic Discussion

Greetings all, I'm glad we picked a very "cold-button issue" to start with. Seriously though, immigration is one of the most important issues facing this country today. A difficulty in even starting a discussion on immigration deals with the context in which one regards the term. Were the first Pilgrims immigrants or religious conquerers? Has America really been the land of immigrants if, in fact, we have a history of selective quotas? What does it say about our country if we have established a culture of "preferrable" immigrant groups?

In terms of where I stand on immigration, I believe it to be a far more convoluted tangle than something like the Death Penalty. Whether one acknowledges it or not, it's an obvious fact that if we deported the millions of illegal immigrants (with families, no less) living in our country, our economy would take an incredibly serious hit. This should not be the case but because American workers are unwilling to perform lower paying/less reward jobs, the positions get filled up by people from other countries. The American fabric is changing, particularly becoming more influenced by Hispanic groups; it is necessary to examine if extensive removal or "chasing down" illegal immigrants would be worth the social turmoil which could result from it.

However, this is a country of limits and, more essentially, a country of laws. The consistent disregard for our immigration laws is a travesty to our justice system and, as of recent, our Homeland Security. We need to protect our borders not only from a non-American workforce but also from drugs and arms. If I were a policy maker, which I'm not, for whatever reason I feel like the most reasonable compromise for this situation would be to grant full amnesty to those illegal immigrants with no criminal records. While this is being enacted, the entire immigration agency should be given much more funding (with taxes directly from illegal immigrants because they would then be taxable) to vastly increase border protection.

These are my two cents, which are usually only half-brained anyway.
Peace,
ryguy

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