In response to PDQ and BB, I'm resurrecting this thread, which does in fact deal with illegal immigrants in the US.

Also, it now seems clear that mid-term election politics will preclude passage of any legislation which sets out a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.

Sending them back to their home countries to start the process of becoming US citizens is wildly impractical.   Yet that is clearly the condition set out by Tancredo, Sensenbrenner, and many others who claim to be interested solving the problem. Anybody actually interested in dealing with the problem honestly should be able to see that requiring them to leave the US in order to start the process will just have the effect of keeping them in the shadows--given that condition they will never make their presence known to US authorities.

Would you?   I wouldn't.

The main reason Bush is in favor of a path to citizenship for illegals is that he realizes the truth of the first posting in this thread--to oppose such a path, especially for Hispanic illegal immigrants is to put yourself squarely on the wrong side of demographics.

More later.