I'll make a couple of points on illegals. For starters, it is THEIR JOB to ENFORCE the laws of our country, that's what we pay taxes for, and that's the service they are required by law and by their oaths of office to provide. To simply let them off the hook, year after year is essentially how we have gotten our selves into this mess on all fronts of our government. At some point, we have to hold them responsible for doing their jobs, and the costs, economic, cultural not to mention the national security issue, of the illegal alien issue, is as good a place as any to start.

Secondly, I think you way overstate the cost and effort required to catch and deport illegal aliens. The vast majority of them are in our country either for work or for taking advantage of the benefits such as health care. They are not very hard to find or identify as the vast majority of them actually have to show up regularly at specific locations or they lose the benefit of actually having come here. So to characterize it in a way that makes it sound like what our soldiers have had to do in Iraq, going house to house trying to determine who's the good guy and the bad guy is misleading, IMO. The laws are already in place, and once the borders are secured, in essence, our law enforcement can almost simply wait at the places where most of these people work, or utilize services and round them up and send them home. Obviously, that won't be possible for each and every one of them, but intuitively, I would venture to guess that would handle nearly 80% or more of them.

Once you secure the border and deport the illegals, then the labor force that supposedly is needed and satisfied by these people can be supplanted by LEGAL aliens where needed, and then we can reform if necessary that LEGAL process in a way that is in OUR best interests and in our control. Obviously, there are millions of people willing to come here LEGALLY, and the biggest frustration for them is the process. Our Country was founded and built on the backs of legal immigrants, and I think we ought to keep that promise open to world, but also protect that promise by REQUIRING that standard of legal immigration to be maintained.

While I'm one to vote for the best person regardless of party affiliation, this is one place where voting Democratic really concerns me. They have a history of allowing the illegal problem to blossom as it typically provides them with a larger Democrat voter base, and I think they support it to the detriment of our national interest. I don't think Republicans have a much better record on it, but I do think there is a stronger willingess to make this a flagship issue for some of the more conservative members of the party. I hope they do.