Mick -

The immigration debate is awash is sloganeering and jingoism - agreed! However, neither side holds a monopoly on "simple-minded chatter."

A few points:

Yes, immigration promotes economic growth in the United States, and immigrants are a crucial labor source in many industries. I'm less certain that the loss of entire generations of productive labor are a boon to Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The United States is now a welfare state, something it was not during previous waves of immigration. Contractors and others hiring undocumented immigrants are able to pass on the social costs of this population (education, healthcare, law enforcement, infastructure, etc.) to state, local and federal governments. There's no free lunch, someone has to pay for all of this.

I've come to believe that our current system is something like a gentleman's agreement between elites on both sides of the border -'they' are able to export surplus population, forestalling necessary reforms indefinately; immigrants who make it across alive (over deserts and mountains, paying thousands of dollars to 'coyotes') are allowed (for the most part) to stay and work for depressed wages. There's more than a whiff of social darwinism about the whole arrangement.

Finally, your assertion that an entire side of this debate is motivated purely by issues of race is an ad homininum argument writ large. Name-calling does not help to advance this debate.