>>Why should I have anything new to say? He's already repeating the last year's thing.
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>>I've already written about a possible solution: legalize those who are already in (a seven year minimum was proposed somewhere, OK by me), have them pay some fees to INS for that, have INS be as efficient as it once was, and give the rest a choice to leave. And, ah, yes, start applying the laws to employers.
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>Isn't your solution basically rewarding people who knowingly broke the law?

No, just offering them a chance to become clean and repay whatever debt they incurred (taxes, Social Security etc). Which is more penalty than what the system is currently doing against their employers - who are actually handsomely rewarded, by being allowed to pay these illegals below standard wages, not paying any dues for them... And the balance comes from your and my pocket then... you do the math.

>What do you do with the ones who have been here less than 7 years? What about the ones who can't afford the fees... give them a choice to leave?

How about paying the fee over some time? Nobody can expect these guys to cough up a thousand bucks on the spot. Give them a year, they'll manage. And, knowing the blazing speed of INS (or whatever are they called this week), that year may take about three years to get started.

>And what if they don't? And what about the ones who will keep streaming across the border? If you go after the employers, they are going to be here without jobs. What do you think they'll do in order to survive?

You can't solve a 12-million strong problem in any meaningful way; the system was broke for decades, so any across-the-board solution would hurt a few hundred thousand for sure. So I'd rather make the problem smaller first - solve the ten million legalizable cases and then deal with the remaining three (I figure there'd be an extra million by that time).

Of course, the best course of action would be to stop the shameless exploitation of their native countries; had they had some chance of prosperity (or even survival) there, they wouldn't be coming here. But forget that I said this, you don't believe there's any such thing as shameless exploitation of other countries, do you?