Wes responds:

Sorry, with all due respect, I'm not buying the "costs would go up and
we need these people to do work that Americans won't do" argument.

This is a subsidy pure and simple. There ain't no free lunch.

No kidding. But the fact is, the work has to be done, and no native-born
American, or damned few, is willing to do it. It is a subsidy, but the subsidy
is not to the taco eater or the laborer. It is to the businessman (or woman),
usually a rabid conservative, who doesn't want to have profits reduced.

|We really do need a coherent immigration policy, but the biggest problem
comes
|from bordre length, and the low paying economies in Latin America, leaving
|people willing to come to the US, work for less than minimum wage, and still
|manage to have enough money left to send a packet home for the family.

But we have a policy. The laws are on the books.

But not enforced. Our president would far rather curry votes than enforce the
law.

They used to be just Mexican. Then they became Mexican-American and
then Chicano, Hispanic for a while and now Latino. As for Bush, he's
given me a lot of reasons to not vote for him again, all of which I
could ignore, but this one's pushed me over the edge.

I used Latino advisedly, simply because an awful lot of these illegals come
from countries other than Mexico. They cross the Mexico-US border, but come
from Colombia, Nicaragua, and other places further south.

The solution is really quite simple. When illegals are found working
in a Walmart, Sammy Walton, Jr. gets a year in jail. When a farmer is
found with illegals in his fields, he gets a year in jail. When a
restaurant owner is found with illegals in the kitchen, he gets a year
in jail. "I didn't know" is not a defense.

That happened here in Parkersburg a few months ago. Owner of a Mexican
restaurant got a ****pot full of property and a ton of money confiscated and is
now in jail because he harbored illegals and did money laundering. Of course,
they may well have nailed his butt because he's an immigrant himself, but what
the hell.

Not much chance of a stockholder in Walmart going to jail--do it to one, you
have to do it proportionately to all, which would really create problems in our
already over-full jails. There is a solution, but I don't know what it is.

A few dozen widely-publicized cases and the job market is gone and the
illegals go home.

Prices will rise to their true value and we will then get to decide
whether to pay them or not and whether we want to revise our
immigration policy or not.

I doubt it. Most crooks, especially business types who don't consider
themselves crooks, are positive they are smarter than anyone who works by the
rules. Some may actually be, but they overlook the fact that the little worker
ants who are trying to nail them are many in number and will eventually get
that anthill built. How many people do you think Enron's mess has scared off?
My guess is it gave others some ideas, showed them new areas to move around and
try to beta the system.

Charlie Self
"The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the
exercise of his mind." Jacques Barzun