These people have a country.  Go home!  If you want to work in the US, apply for a VISA.

But that would mean theat MEX would loose $50B a year in money sent home from illegal workers in the US, and a few lobbyist.  Damn.

Why thank God for Webb?  For making US Citizenship meaningless?

When I was reading his book, I kept identifying with many of the themes that he was discussing in the history of the Scots-Irish: migration, having to work hard for survival, having one's ethnic background demonized.

At this moment, Mexico and Latin Americans are going through a  cycle of great migration to the U.S., which the Scots-Irish have, more or less been engaged in for generations, and to this day still, within the U.S.

Webb proposes a fair deal. You either have lived in the U.S. for 4 or 5 years, or you have strong roots in the community. The way I see it, it means that anyone who has already made a life in the U.S. gets the same chance that previous immigrants had of making a life in this country.

The people we are talking about are NOT legal immigrants and have no right to be here regardless of when they crossed the border or how many "anchor" babies they've had while here.

Press "1" for No amnesty!

From 1841 to 1850, immigration exploded to 1,713,000 total immigrants as at least 781,000 Irish, with the famine of 1845-1919 driving them, fled their homeland to escape poverty and death. The British, attempting to divert some of this traffic to help settle Canada, offered bargain fares of 15 shillings, instead of the normal 5 pounds (100 shillings) for transit to Canada. Thousands of poor Irish took advantage of this offer, and headed to Canada on what came to be called the "coffin ships" because of their high death rates. Once in Canada, many Irish walked across the border or caught an intercoastal freighter to the nearest major city in the United States - usually Boston or New York.

Doesn't sound very "legal" to me.

We have plenty enough people here now to settle the west and homestead 40 acre dirt farms in Oklahoma.  That task is over.  We don't need more.

To me the sticking point is the adjective 'exploitable.' Congress can do a lot to avoid workers from being exploited.

In other words, Congress could legislate the market for exploitable labor out of existence by making it hard to exploit workers to begin with.

Now, in practice, almost all immigrants were let in at Ellis Island.

I'm trying to find a fair graphic, and I'm not vouching for the source, but this shows a good picture :

The recent bulge is starting to dwarf the bulges of the 1800s and growing parts of it are illegal immigrants and we're growing increasingly uncertain of the actual numbers.

The proposed solutions range from "close the border and kick the bums out" to "open the borders and guarantee them the living wage".  There's a solution somewhere in the middle, and for my tastes somewhere in the middle of that chart.

Just giving everyone amnesty, not enforcing workplace verification and expanding "non-immigration" through guest worker programs, as the Senate is propopsing, is not really addressing the issues in a moderate and fair way.

Also, what about the fact that Britain used North America as a penal colony for around 150 years?  According to Wikipedia, "It is estimated that some 60,000 British convicts were banished to colonial America, representing perhaps one-quarter of all British emigrants during the eighteenth century."  How does one treat that?

My guess is that, over the years, a fairly high percentage of immigrants - African, Irish, English, Italian, Polish, whoever - into this country were not necessarily "legal" by today's standards, or even by their OWN days' standards.  The overall point is that this is not a black and white issue, as certain people would lead us to believe.  Today, we've got laws about immigration that are widely flouted by major corporations and citizens, with the government pretty much looking the other way, because the supply and demand forces are so strong.

2) Right now it is illegal to hire an illegal alien; bush rarely inforces the law.  bush promised his supporters that he was sending thousands of troops to guard the border; at last report only a few hundred have arrived.  Last year a law was passed to build hundreds of miles of fence along the border.  Now one can honestly debate the need for the full fence but fewer than 100 miles have been built.  In other words, bush-cheney have done nothing to enforce our current immigration laws and defend our borders.

3) New laws won't accomplish anything if the bush-cheney and their rich friends have NO intention of enforcing them.

This bill is a favor for the corporations and nothing more than a massive subsidy of cheap, exploitable, and frequently abused humans seeking greener pastures.

These people are fleeing corruption and a nation that doesn't value human rights, for another corrupt nation that, although much wealthier, is so eager to exploit their dire situation.

Why should corporations be sponsoring ANYONE in this country?  Isn't citizenship and immigration something that should be sacrosanct and protected from the vultures in companies across America?

This is a modern day form of indentured servitude.  It is "slavery light".  It does nothing more than legitimize the exploitation of millions of people.

Shame on the corporate controlled Senators who poisoned this bill.  They know who they are.  And they sit on both sides of the aisle.

The house will never agree to a bill that even closely resembles what the Senate has drafted.  We should just call them the "House of Lords" since that is how they behave - like an aristocracy that represents the aristocracy.  And King George is their leader.

The real problem is major expansion of the guest workers programs that will only help corporations drive down workplace standards and wages for all workers.  It will create an apartheid-like structure that treats workers like commodities.

Slaves represented 15-20% of the labor force before Lincoln. With 25 million low wage guest workers and 10 million mid wage guest workers on H and L visas under the Bush plan, we're approaching that again.

For the first time in 150 years, we'll have over 20% of the workforce unable to vote and their status tied to their master employer.

All that said, this bill isn't good enough as is.  It would certainly get torn to shreds in the House.  The real question is what both the House and Senate will agree upon.

I want the immigration reform to live on because I am optimistic (and I probably deserve to be smacked for that optimism).

I hope that the final bill (that both the house and senate send for a vote) is truly an immigration program that Americans can be proud of.  A program that is enforced, is fair to immigrants, and strongly protects workers.  If this bill dies, I don't believe we have much of a chance of enacting immigration reform any time soon. 

Perhaps house Democrats should draft their own bill since the Senate can't seem to get it right.

Another issue is we need a President that's going to enforce workplace verification.  Bush has made it clear that he's not the man to do it; he's too beholden to his old Texas "agri-bidness" buddies.  You can put all the machine guns you want down in the Sonoran desert, as long as managers aren't getting serious fines and jail time for willful negligence, then any bill is toothless.

The house is more accountable to the people.  I wonder if they should be drafting their version first because the Senate has created a bill that won't work for anyone.  They spend too much time trying to do favors for their corporate friends, ad not enough time doing what is right for our nation.

In the house, we have Harris Miller's favorite congresswoman and former immigration lawyer Zoe Lofgren from Silicon Valley on the Judiciary committee who is also the chair the Immigration Subcommittee.  Nothing good is going to come out her committee.  Any house bill will provide generous subsidies for Oracle and Microsoft.

Nancy Pelosi knows that if Senate kills bill, "reform" is done 'til 2009.

BTW, the H-1B cap is very soft.  The actual number of H-1Bs is twice the 65,000 amount : http://sfgate.com/cg...

Second, dealing with immigration offices in Mexico is a big burden. Back in the early 1990s, before this latest wave of immigration started, the U.S. consulate always had a line that went around the block with people trying business done there. This was normal business; imagine how bad it will be with millions back home, trying to get submit their applications. This means that one doesn't know how long it will take to submit those applications.

That said, I am against the bill mainly because of the form of the guest worker program. It is more or less slavery.