Originally Posted by
Canadian Visitor
Your base argument - the law should be enforced and ought not to be so easy to circumvent - is one most people, regardless of their partisan or ideological predispositions can get behind.
Its your failure to be pragmatic that does your argument harm.
Based on the evidence I've seen, there are roughly 4,000,000 legal American Citizens who are the children of illegals.
That's done. You can't repeal someone's birthright citizenship after the fact.
So those 4,000,000 are staying.
Are you going to deport their parents, if the children are legal dependents under the age of 18?
Then they're about to get a whole lot more expensive as you put them into foster care!
This is the thing. Its not about rewarding law breakers.
Its about understanding that you can't unscramble the egg.
Some of this is done, for better or worse.
That's completely apart from issues of millions of people disappearing from their jobs overnight, without notice, as if there were a line millions long of Americans ready to take their place.
Its just not so.
That doesn't mean you reward, or forgive anyone, let alone everyone.
It means you present a workable solution.
For many, cutting off their access to legal employment by enforcing existing laws against employers alone would suffice and more than likely, at least 2,000,000 would return home on their own.
For others, it will mean some form of amnesty as its the only practical choice.
That does not mean you don't penalize them in some way.
If, for instance, they haven't paid legal income tax since arriving, and have been employed, you might make them pay back some portion of what they ought to have paid.
You might also require some form of community service as a give back, 4 hours per week, 50 weeks a year for 2 years?
Lots of options.
The point is to propose a solution not only that the majority can get behind, but that is physically and financially practical to deliver.
***
PS you do know that if you run a stop sign, and aren't charged at the time, that an officer can't actually charge you later, right?
You also know that there's a statute of limitations on most crimes, including many very serious ones.
Finally, you know that people can be pardoned or amnestied for any number of offenses, its not unique to immigration.
Canada is in the process of pardoning people who were convicted of simple possession of pot.
We previously wiped out charges related to gay sex after the state got out of the business of criminalizing people's private lives. [[a long time ago)
Its part of how you move forward.