Some observations on immigration

1. Making illegal immigrants felons seems like a really bad idea. Facing a prison sentence, some of those illegals will undoubtedly prefer shooting it out with enforcement agents. Convicted felons will have no chance at US citizenship. Keeping them in prison will be expensive, as will transporting them back and forth to deportation hearings, etc.

2. It stinks to think that children of aliens who gained citizenship through US birth could be separated from their illegal alien parents, who can be legally deported. Are we going to build orphanages for these kids? What kind of services will need to be provided for hundreds of thousands of kids who are legal by birth, but the children of imprisoned or deported parents? Is this the same administration that screams for family values?

3. The illegals are not all from Mexico. They are from Canada, China, Ireland, the Caribbean, every country on earth. I heard it stated that the majority of illegals arrive by air, with student visas, work visas, or as tourists and then just blend into the underground, fail to leave when their time is through.

4. All workers, regardless of how they arrived in this country, deserve similar job benefits. Similar pay, similar protection afforded by all the labor laws, worker's compensation and disability insurance. They should also be paying income taxes on their work.

6. If Nafta sent so many American jobs to Mexico, why are so many Mexicans coming here for jobs???

7. At least one of our presidents, Ronald Reagan, was the descendent of an illegal alien who snuck over the border from Canada.

8. Speaking of Reagan, he was the guy who demanded that the Berlin Wall come down. Twenty years later, the plan is to build our own wall across the borders with Canada and Mexico. East Germany's wall was meant to keep people in. Ours is meant to keep people out. We've never had a problem with people wanting to leave. Since the beginning, people have lined up to come into our country. There's something inherently wrong with trying to stop them.

9. That said, our immigration laws have almost always been meant to keep out undesirables. At one time that meant criminals, as well as those with mental or physical ailments. If we did such a good job of stopping criminals at the border, where did all the criminals come from??? And stopping those with mental or physical illness did not leave our nation free of those infirmities either. This isn't Harvard. The admission process needn't be so strenuous. A great country has a way of making great people.

10. We are all descended from immigrants.