Redstate

And let me close by reiterating the hope that Dobbs, at some point, completely blows up on national television. Maybe it will take more glimpses into his ugly side before we realize that Lou Dobbs and an enlightened citizenry just don't mix.

There's not a whole lot that you and I will agree on, but we're together on that.

"It takes two people to lie Marge"
"One person to lie and one person to listen...."

Jesus, I really have begun to dislike Lou Dobbs. Didn't this man graduate from n Ivy League school? If he did you could have fooled me because sometimes he is the biggest populist I've seen in a while. He offers no context, no facts, no statistics no arguement, just a bunch of populist lowest common demoninator emotional shouting....and this is some of the best CNN has to offer....sad. I am in agreement we should pay more heed to our population and it's needs etc at times but you cannot hide your head in the sand, enact awful protectionist policies and think it will make everything better. This is not 1960 and we are not the sole economic driver in the world anymore, this world is changing, and we have to change with it. Lou Dobbs and his alarmist ignorant "War on the Middle Class" is not helping matters as it seeks to emotionaly alarm and not educate.

After triage, and the borders have been sealed to staunch the bleeding. Only then, can we can address assimilating some of the illegals.

I take it as fundamental that any issue that makes it more difficult to reach full assimilation, in effect then rewards staying hidden or an open alien. So if there is eventually any legalization amnesty, there are two requirements that are NON_NEGOTIABLE. Any fine for being here illegally is assessed and paid as fee for the pseudo-legalization of an interim 'z type' visa.

First, I do not want a free Z visa, AND THEN AN ASSESSED FINE, THE FEE IS INCLUDED IN THE z VISA AND THE FINE HAS BEEN PAID. Period. I am unsympathetic, and don't want to listen to cries "How can I raise the money to pay my FINE?" (Do the crime; do the time!)

Secondly, there will be some type of cutoff date that says illegals have to have been in country for 3 or 5 or x number of years without being a criminal. The ONLY ACCEPTABLE PROOF FOR THE DURATION IS YOUR IRS 1040s. Prove you paid your taxes. Until paid in full, no Z visa may be issued.

Now there is no economic incentive to prevent assimilation.
There is no reward for staying as an alien. Citizenship beckons, and after the prescribed necessities of learning US history, the English language, et cetera.

Welcome to citizenship in the USA, the greatest experiment in human civilization yet extant. Join the Melting Pot.

Milton Friedman, to be sure, was quite right when he said that an open borders policy is inconsistent with the existence of a massive welfare state. The solution, however, is to reform the welfare state, not to continue to engage in self-defeating immigration policies.

And, of course, there's only one tiny problem with this prescription, namely that it's absolutely impossible to implement. Even tiny, incremental changes in the composition and structure (but not the size) of the welfare state such as Bush's ill-fated 2005 personal SS account proposal are overwhelmingly opposed by the vast majority of the public.

Whether we like it or not, the welfare state will almost certainly be a feature of American life for a long time to come, and will, if anything, grow over the next few years. Policy (on immigration or any other matter) must reflect this unfortunate reality, and not some unattainable dream state.

Incidentally, I hate the term "open borders." It makes it sound as if the Goths, Visigoths and Vandals are coming to sack Rome.

Out of curiosity, would you have every nation state implement the lenient immigration policies that you want America to enforce? If not, then why not?

to "security concerns," else I should be tempted to pull a Lou Dobbs on you. And I admit that Dobbs is not at his most persuasive when he assumes that it is obvious that successfully importing a unit of labor is different than importing an apple. To some people it must not be obvious, though I cannot imagine why.

The main flaw I see with your solution is that many, if not most, of the temporary workers entering the country remain dedicated citizens of their native country, with minor or no interest in becoming US citizens if it requires assimilation or a commitment to remain here.

Our security requires that we have control of our borders, and of those who enter on "temporary" visas. After that, the number actually admitted will, for the forseeable future, be limited by the capacity of the bureaucracy to enforce those controls.

I believe legal immigration is good for this country. I don't understand why anyone would think an open border with Mexico is acceptable. Besides the criminal element, and drug smuggling, the illegal Latinos coming into this country don't speak English, are lucky if they have a 3rd grade education, don't understand or care about our history and laws and don't have any skills. If the government says there are 12 million illegal aliens in this country that means there are 25 million illegal aliens here. What is going to happen when there are no longer any crops to work, construction work slows, the motel/hotel business slows down, and there isn't any landscaping work during the winter months?
Well I guess there are always food stamps, aid to dependent children, welfare and section 8 housing, which is why they like this county so much. For the life of me I can't see how this is good for America!

I'll take Lou's Blues for $500 please Alex.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite

"I am all in favor of that and the best way to do it is to reduce the illegal immigration problem by making citizenship easier to obtain. Not easy. But easier so that incentives for an immigration black market--in the form of illegal immigrants--are removed."

At present we take in from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 legal immigrants each year. Those crossing our southern border illegally, plus visa overstays and other's entering illegally add about another 1,000,000 per year. You'll never remove the incentives for illegal immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America and other poor nations, and if we allow all who apply legally to come we'd have several million per year from the south alone.

Is there any annual, numerical limit to your "easier" legal immigration? If not, you're simply advocating open borders, and neither you nor anyone else have any idea how many millions that would attract annually.

Complete nonsense, at least about 80% or more of American citizens will consider it so. And we're watching these policy decisions like never before.

This "labor unit" thinks Lou Dobbs is an absolute hero. Bush thinks it is good for America to export high-paying jobs whenever possible and import poor, uneducated workers to take low-paying jobs that cannot be exported. I disagree.

Personally, I still believe it means something to be an American. And I think it's vitally important to maintain America's economic might. America is the economic engine for the entire world. Your "open borders" policy would quickly turn us into a third world nation.

Keep in mind that that there are 5 billion people in the world who are poorer than the average Mexican. They would all love to come here and could make more working half a day per week than they could working full-time in their own countries. They could come and work their half day per week and then wind up on the public dole. Then you could sit back and see how fast we'd fall apart.

As for me, I'm fed up with the country club Republicans who disappear into their gated communities at night and re-emerge in the daytime to tell us what is best for our country. I'm a conservative and I live in the real world. Open borders is not the answer.

FOX news had an almost total blackout on the AMNESTY debate and Lou Dobbs was like a pitbull and brought Independents on board to get that travesty killed, he can be over the top but I would say the President, Lindsay Graham, Jon Kyl and friends were way over the top and deserved everything they got. If the welfare state is not abolished before over 20 million illegals get AMNESTY you me and rest of the US will be working to pay taxes to take care of them and the bountiful amount of American citizens who need welfare benefits. All policy runs down hill from the AMNESTY bill, taxes, ss, medicade, security and the most important of all the rule of law. I am a free market kind of girl however hiring illegals and paying them below standard wages is not free market it is controlling salaries and is hurting the American worker and business could care less their idea of the free market is they get richer off the backs of "slave labor" while the American worker gets stiffed for the medical care and feeding of that same worker. Incredible that any conservative could have found the AMMESTY bill anything but un-American.

I think the rising tide of popular sentiment against illegal immigration is entirely justified.
We have, from government down to citizens on the street, tolerated millions of people violating our laws for decades.
Legal immigration, most people - even those very much opposed to illegal immigration- believe it is a good thing.
I dislike that the pro-ilegal side of the debate resorts from the get-go to false claims of racism and xenophobia to deflect attention from this issue.
Dobbs may indeed be blowhard parody of himself, but for me that is not important. What is significant is we are being flooded by illegal aliens. And our government does not take it seriously.

"Once you have more people dealing legally and going through the system, you will stand a better chance of catching terrorists. It sure beats the current system, where someone who means the United States harm could sneak through the borders along with all of the other illegal immigrants."

Except for a visa overstay or two, most or all of the 9/11 terrorists came here legally and were in legal status on 9/11. Spies or terrorists have always used legal entry paths to enter a nation and do their thing, including the use of diplomatic positions to insert spies.

The more people we allow in from Islamic nations, the more Islamic terrorists we will inevitably allow into our midst, or who think sharia should be implemented in the US.

This idea held by many conservatives that says we should have unending mass legal immigration while abolishing (or reforming in a conservative manner) things like the welfare state borders on the delusional. Racial preferences is another example; they say we should get rid of them while we continue to import millions who will be eligible for them! It doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter that most immigrants are not coming with the intent of taking advantage of public services and ethnic preferences, because who is going to look a gift horse in the mouth? The simple truth is that the longer we continue to allow high levels of immigration (legal and illegal), the harder it will be to ever truly abolish such things, because most immigrants, as well as most of the first couple of generation of native borns, will vote Democratic. And the Democrats will guarantee the continuation of policies conservatives abhor.

As far as terrorism is concerned (and as Will88 points out), it is crazy to allow anything more than a strictly controlled trickle of Muslim immigrants. But thanks to our Democrat-empowering system of unending chain migration, immigration from Muslim nations will likely continue to rise. I'll give Senator Kyl credit for getting what he thought was an end to chain migration in the defeated 'comprehensive' reform bill. It is sorely needed, and that alone should be enough to make conservatives consider the bill. The problem, of course, was that (a) the end would not happen until after eight years of greatly increased chain migration, and (b) no one other than Kyl and Graham believed the change would ever actually take place. A Democrat congress could be counted on to try and gut it. With a Dem President, or Bush-like Republican president (Giuliani), they could be counted on to succeed.