[jyl]

Although liberal on many issues, I strongly disagree with the protestors on this issue.

Legal immigration should be encouraged and illegal immigration stopped. Border controls should be greatly strengthened. Employers should be forced to verify workers' legal status, on pain of severe penalties. Legitimate business needs for low-wage labor should be distinguished from illegitimate needs, and addressed with legal guest worker programs. Guest workers who play by the rules for a long time (decades) and integrate into American society should be rewarded with green cards or citizenship, while those who don't should be barred from entry, work, benefits, and if necessary imprisoned.

One challenge is that the federal government will have to create a reliable system for actually verifying a worker's legal status, meaning a huge IT project that needs to actually work.