I always find myself preaching my solution to this problem, which I think is damn good, but everybody else ignores for some reason. Immigration is good. A higher population allows our economy to become more specialized and grow, and quality of life gets better. Then what is the problem with illegal immigration? The fact that illegal immigrants don't pay taxes, so while they support themselves in the economy they do not support themselves in the state infrastructure- as Native American says, they do not pay for the roads that they drive on, the schools they send their children to, the health care that they recieve, et cetera. California's schools aren't really that bad when you consider how many children are going to them with no parental tax support. Likewise, our freeways would be less crowded if everybody driving on them was paying for them, and on and on. So, how do we make immigrants pay taxes? Make them citizens. Why can't we make it like Ellis Island? Put a few checkpoints on the border, document everybody that comes over, butcher their last name, and voila. They support themselves in our infrastructure. They support themselves in our economy. Eventually they will mix in our society. Problem solved. The argument that often comes up is that most illegals wont legalize themselves, that most illegals just come to America for social benefits. First of all, I wouldn't mind cancelling all social benefits anyways. But realistically the argument is bull shit for another reason; the average immigrant desires a life that is better for himself and his family. An immigrant by nature desires a new life; the average immigrant will take American citizenship happily. Of course there will be a few that don't, but that wont be any higher of a number than we have right now. And if we remove the hard-working, struggling for a new life illegals out of the equation, and are only left with the crappy "I'm here for welfare" immigrants, than we will give the INS and Border Patrol something smaller to deal with. The other brain-dead argument that people often come up with is that the illegals will overwhelm our economy. First of all, they will supposedly do that whether they are citizens or not. Second of all, anybody who believes this has a weak grasp on capitalism. As Mad Michael, who is very knowledgeable if a bit misguided, has already stated, the more people in a free market the better. Of course there will be a few years of adjustment do to the inflow of new workers. But since we can't stop the new workers, and we need the new workers, and that we already have the new workers, what we need to do is give them citizenship. The other equally brain-dead argument is that if we make US citizenship free, then the entire population of South and Central America will come to America. Now since everybody in today's world is totally unable to comprehend the idea of national expansion, this seems like a valid argument to many. However, when I look at a map, I see this massive area immediately to our south and it seems like it is rather desolate. There's some kind of crappy three-bared flag on it, but I don't think that would be a problem. Face reality people- Mexico is a third world country. Mexico has no economic capital in their economy or political capital in their government- Mexico lives in the vaccuum surrounding the US. As such is it our duty to annex them in some manner; not necessarily through bloody warfare, it could be through expansion of political power and we never even need to set more than a token force on their soil. But Mexico is incapable of fending for itself, and in order to survive the US must expand- it is in everybody's interest for the US to annex Mexico. That way the problems that are causing the illegal immigration in the first place will be nonexistent. As more and more people flee Mexico to the US, it becomes all the more obvious that the US must unite with Mexico. (Under our Constitution, of course.) I could elaborate more on the expansion part of my philosophies if you want, but they are pretty much a minor aspect in my beliefs of how we should deal with the illegal immigration problems.