I'm not justifying illegal immigration, but doing it legally can suck. It can take years and there are a lot of hoops to jump through. I have known people who get separated from their family because they opted to finally do the right thing. After living in this country and being a productive member of society they said, "Let me do this the legal way," to which the government replied, "Leave and try again later."
There is no justification to entering a country illegally - no matter what conditions are like in your home country. Becoming a citizen is hard everywhere, there shouldn't be sympathy felt. What you do is: apply for a working visa, work, stay here for a few years, and gradually wait a few years to apply when you are eligible just like the rest of us.
There's so much misinformation and so many generalizations in this topic, but I don't really have time to argue about it.
Let me just say that it's good that people can come to America to escape problems in their home countries. America has always been a symbol of that. The solution to this "illegal immigration" crCIA is to reform the immigration system so that there's actually a viable legal channel for these people to use. Of course, then people will just flat-out say that they don't want the immigrants because they're Mexican/Latinos, but at least then the racism will be obvious rather than being hidden under the "illegal" context.
It's good that they want to come here, but they also have to have the legal grounds to come here. I don't think this is racism, it's not tribal to say that the vast majority of these illegal immigrants are Mexican and/or Central American.
I think it's absolutely right they they be tried on a case by case basis, and have individual decisions made. America was once the place where everyone came to escape things in their own countries, but now they've made it much harder to come here legally. And when they come illegally, they have to hide and force their way in and even then, things like this often happen and they end up deported back to where they were trying to escape.
I think it isn't right to flood the court system with simple things like this with thousands of pending cases. They should all have the same result: automatic deportation. I'm not saying that we should deport the illegals who came here before, but there should be a law where illegals who've came here after a certain year like 2014 or 2015 will be automatically deported. These illegal immigrants abuse the system, and us taxpayers have to take money out of our pockets to pay for their healthcare and education.
I don't like this whole "melting pot"/"land of the immigrants" schtick.
Most of the people who are actually living in America are not immigrants or even people with immigrants for parents.
I live in America and consider my nationality to be American, not 2/5 italian 3/5 irish 1/5 german 6/2 dutch etc.
It is true though, that America has always been a melting pot. I consider myself to be American, but I go by my nationalities too: Danish, Dutch, English, Swedish, Russian and Afrikaaner, and not but least American.
Millions of land mines all along your side of the border.
Everyone has to enter through a controlled point.
Do as the Australians do and just sink ships of illegal immigrants.
If only there were seas between the US-Mexican border.
