There are several things going on in politics right now that I'd love to discuss with our Huck's Army family to kill some time until Bill gets everything up and running.

I know Bill is VERY concerned about the immigration issue and will be giving us some information on that soon. I don't know what all Bill has - but what I've read myself is downright scary. Someone I used to think of as a friend asked me what I have against Mexicans because I post so many links to articles about illegal immigration. I told her I don't like ILLEGAL immigration regardless of what nationality they are.

Muslims that overstayed their VISA's have caused thousands of deaths here in America. I do NOT want any form of amnesty given to anyone at the very least until AFTER our borders are secured. Didn't our legislatures promise to secure the borders after the Reagan amnesties? What makes us think they'd do any better now that we are trillions of dollars in debt?

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Psalms 144:1 "Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:"

Just a thought...

are the borders actually "securable"? Is it possible to secure them in practice and in that case how?

Don't get me wrong, I believe that more can be done to prevent illegal immigration. But given 1) how wide the US borders are and 2) how many people are constantly trying to get in, the borders are never going to be "sealed". To say "No amnesty until the borders are sealed" is therefore the same thing as saying "No amnesty, ever" - as long as there is at least 1 illegal immigrant arriving every year, there will be conservatives claiming that the borders aren't sealed yet and that hence it's too early to issue an amnesty.

That's not to say that amnesty is the best course of action, but we should be realistic and start discussing how we can REDUCE illegal immigration. Slogans and catchphrases gets us nowhere.

I agree, Wendero. I can understand concern for the proposed immigration reform bill, but I don't understand all the condemnation of Senator Rubio. IMO, he is offering proposals and possible amendments the same as Ted Cruz, Rand, Paul and Mike Lee. Also, the opposition are saying "no amnesty," yet aren't willing to say they would deport the 11 million already here--another form of amnesty. So, that is another way in which we could always have amnesty and in some ways we could only be trading one form of amnesty for another, but why blame the conservatives who are trying to get some form of proposals passed in a bipartisan manner?

I never used the word "seal" or "sealed". But, our government broke their promise to secure the border which was part of the 1986 amnesty bill. What part of the word "illegal" is so hard to understand? I just read an interesting article this morning:

DHS confirms cheaper to deport every illegal alien than allowing them to stay

It has been reported that 10 million illegal immigrants are in our country. Our country is broke!!! We cannot afford to allow them to stay. If our citizens go to their countries illegally we are not treated anywhere near as kindly.

I live in an area of very high unemployment. We also have a huge amount of illegal immigrants in our area. Alabama has recently proved that Americans will do those jobs "no body wants" when they are given the chance. We cannot allow foreigners to come to America illegally OR stay here after their VISA expires and take over OUR country - no matter what nationality they are!

I live next to the WI border. They have open elections where people can register the day of the election without having to show proper id. A piece of mail (like a utility or doctor bill) with their name and address has been sufficient - according to some WI election judges I have talked to.

Bill is spending his hard earned money to reactivate Huck's Army to try to save our country. We need to keep the House and win back the Senate. Will that be possible if illegal immigrants are allowed to potentially vote in our elections?

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Psalms 144:1 "Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:"

GrannyT, I didn't mean for my post to sound like a personal attack on you - just more a general comment on the problem with conservatives and the conservative dialogue around immigration. Mxnwilson mentioned another problem, which is what we do with those who are already here - conservatives just ignore that problem altogether.

We need to straighten out our internal dialogue and discuss actual, real solutions.

One thing that might work is imprisonment for anyone who hires an illegal immigrant. And I really do mean imprisonment - not fines, no-one who hires an illegal immigrant cares about fines. They're mostly upper middle class and above, rich enough not to bother if they lose a few hundred bucks. Also, fines are not scary - they're an anonymous punishment, no-one will ever know, there's no shame involved. Imprisonment on the other hand - having to tell your kids and all your friends that you're going to prison because you hired an illegal immigrant (even when there are plenty of unemployed americans who would have loved to take on the job), that's the kind of thing that can really scare people on an emotional level.

But here's the biggest problem with stopping illegal immigration: We kinda don't want to. Illegal immigration is really convenient, and if there's one thing Americans (and most people in the western world really) aren't good at, it's giving up conveniences. It's really convenient being able to get a hamburger for half the price it would cost if there were no illegal immigrants working at McD. It's really convenient getting your gardenwork done for a quarter of what a regular american earns/hour. It's really convenient buying cheap beef in the supermarket, beef that is only cheap because the illegal immigrants are working for nothing in the slaughterhouses.

That's not to say that illegal immigration is good. But, it's like a bag of potato chips: You know you should put it down and exercise, you know that would be better in the long run. But, you don't, because sitting on the couch, watching a sitcom and eating potato chips is just so much more convenient.

We keep eating our potato chips, and we keep (in practice) tolerating illegal immigration for the same reason.

Once we've found a way to stop the obesity epidemic, maybe we can apply that solution to illegal immigration as well?

I thought this was one thing that the FairTax was useful for: removing the motivation for employers to hire illegal workers because it would cost the same amount as hiring legal ones.

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I share Huck's birthday...I was a few years too late though