>>Legalize 11 million? Hmmmmm, I wonder if I show up in England, France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, or Italy, et al. if they would legalize me if I stayed long enough.... How about 11 million me's?
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>Just find another rich country which has let its borders stay so porous for such a long time. And the countries you mention did have a quite simple way for guest workers to come in, and they were actually welcomed and legal for most of the last four decades (or maybe even longer). With an easy legal way, you get a negligible number of illegals, which any decent police can deal with. You've probably seen a lot of Turks and Yugos in Germany - and they were legal, AFAIK.
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>Some of these countries are starting to restrict their policy lately; even some asylum seekers are turned away. Some have their asylum grant expired, when the situation in their home country is normalized.
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>The problem with illegal immigrants in the US is, IMO, the fault of the system, which has looked the other way for decades. All of a sudden there's this huge campaign to do something about it - probably as a distraction from more pressing problems.


My understanding is Germany has welcomed immigrants (with work visas, not illegals) as cheap labor but has given them virtually no chance to become citizens. That is a model I sure hope we don't follow.