Bill D -others do various things like hiding illegal friends & relatives. How many others, Bill? And others do things like hide illegal drugs in there homes for their friends. Perhaps that would make it OK to detain all folks that live in drug areas and search their homes without cause. As to social services, the numbers I see show that indigent folks that are born here are more of a strain on the system than the immigrant population. Ebbie gave you a link above to a snopes piece that debunked much of what is said.

Immigration problems could be settled with a decent immigration policy, and by putting appropriate pressures on the Mexican government. Let me give you an example that would have solved much of the problem, if folks had had the wherewithal and resolve to force the hand of business and government. There already was a program that was supposed to help the problem. It involved creating zones (does maquilladora ring a bell? how about NAFTA?). These trade zones were supposed to create an uplift in the Mexican standard of living, provide decent jobs, and keep the folks in Mexico. But we allowed smooth talking pol's, many of them Democrats, to take all the protections that would forbid the capitalists from just taking advantage of poor people. We refused to put environmental protections in the Act which would have not allowed smokestack gases and chemicals in the groundwater on the Mexican side. We refused to insist on certain labor provisions which would have given the workers the right to organize. We used the excuse that we couldn't mettle in the affairs of another country. What a crock that was. Of course we could, as we were negotiating the treaty. But Big Busines and their pals in the two parties really didn't give a shit about the internal affairs of that country. What they wanted was a free hand to take advantage of cheap Mexican labor, and the ability to not have to worry about the environment. The effect all these years later is that this treaty has done nothing to enhance Mexican life, and folks still want to come here because they recognize the sham that NAFTA was and is. And now we extended it to Central America, again with no protections.

This isn't about holding government accountable, if it was, folks would be outraged. But they focus on brown skin and say "we have a problem". Yeah, the problem is that we are a bunch of saps, and the big boys love to see us argue about a bunch of Mexican folks instead of seeing the real issues. And they are separate issues. One is an erosion of your Constitutional rights, and the other is about how you have been duped into supporting the destruction of yours and others economies.

Mick