To: tejek who wrote (349983 ) 9/8/2007 1:18:11 PM From: SilentZ Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1574059 >All of the above requires some enforcement of the laws but you don't want to enforce the law that requires you be in this country legally if you want to work in this country. Maybe its me but you are not making a lot of sense here. It's so hard to come to this country legally these days that it's unfair. I'd say let people come and report to the INS and get a work permit fairly easily. If you want to work, you have to get that permit. Then, enforce the policy on the employer side, not the employee side -- if an employer hires someone without a permit, there should be severe penalties against the employer, not the employee, and those penalties should be strictly enforced. The penalty should be something like, if the employer gets caught hiring someone illegally, the employer should have to pay the government the equivalent (or maybe double) the wages that he's paid the employee to date, plus all of the back taxes. Also, the employer should have to pay a steeper payroll tax on a foreign employee than he would on a U.S. citizen to make up for the fact that the foreign employees are not paying income taxes, sending money out of the country, and using our services, with a little left over to pay down our deficit. If he still wants to employ that person for some reason (over hiring an American), than fine. But he's paying a price, and some poor schlub from Guadalajara gets an opportunity. Additionally, that poor schlub doesn't have the specter of deportation hanging over his head, so he can join a union rather than be used as a way to weaken unions. And, of course, raise the minimum wage a bit while you're at it, so that if wages are still depressed somewhat by immigration, there's a floor to it. As for the issue of "what about terrorists coming into the country?" you and I both know that that's pretty overblown. There are as many or more domestic terrorists scheming against the US than foreign ones. Make sense? -Z P.S.: I'm in LA for the third time and haven't heard anything about Aztlan yet. I happen to be going this afternoon to a very Hispanic area (Hawaiian Gardens) on my way to having dinner with Tenchusatsu... there's a reason for it, and it's going to make for a pretty interesting blog post.