>>>Have you thought about this part of the issue? Why would people take all the risks of getting here and being here illegally if there weren't a significant benefit to them?
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>>That's the crux of our differences with regards to this. You believe I should care whether something is a significant benefit to them. I do for the ones willing to come into the country legally. Not the others.
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>I find that when I try to look at an issue from the other guy's side, I learn something. In this case, understanding why people come here illegally, and then imagining myself in their position, makes me feel a lot of sympathy. They're in a no-win situation, so they choose the option they think gives the best outcome.
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>Perhaps my thinking this way comes from my family history. As I've hinted elsewhere in this thread, my mother's parents were victims of the Holocaust. (They were murdered in Auschwitz.) I look at the millions who died that way and I know that some people who survived did so only because they entered other countries illegally, or because bureaucrats from some countries broke all kinds of rules to get them paperwork to get out. I wish millions more had broken the law in those days.

If they were being murdered like the Jews in Europe during the Holocaust, then I would let them in. They're not.

I do understand your point, though it does not change my opinion.