Hullo, Dave-

I don't fundamentally disagree with most of what you've said, but I do think your emphasis is a bit off. I don't want to wrangle about this at great length, but would comment on several things :

In your "Consequential and Major" paragraph, below,

RE: #1 Education in the U.S. has been woefully under funded for the last thirty years, since the 'tax cuts at any cost' doctrine gained popular support. That's why the U.S. ranks 36th in math scores behind many third-world nations. Ditto public services on the State and Federal Level ('government is the problem, not the solution')- the public want services, but don't feel they should have to pay for them. The heath care system in the U.S. is a bad joke & getting worse.
ALL of this pre-dates the present illegal immigration hysteria. Illegal immigrants have not caused these problems, and the "strain" they cause is minimal, compared to the root causes.

RE: #2- The 'assimilation' (a.k.a. "Melting Pot Argument") red herring goes back to before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 ; dire consequences were at different times predicted due to the influx of 'un-assimilable' Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, Irish, Catholics, Eastern Europeans, Italians & just about every other nationality or ethnic group in existence (not excepting native-born African Americans). Strangely, these dire consequences never materialized. Again, a minor problem, if a problem at all.

RE: #3- See number 1, above, re: inadequate education funding. Also, as foreign languages have been all but eliminated in many U.S. schools due to funding cuts, there should be lots of language educators looking for work. Plenty of other much poorer counties than the U.S. seem to be able to support bi-lingual education; the so-called "strain" is blown way out of proportion.


RE: #4: ghetto-ization and fluctuating crime levels have been problematical in the U.S. since time immemorial, and while there is no unanimity of opinion as to causes, poverty, lack of employment opportunities, abandonment of certain neighborhoods by municipal authorities, cuts & services, etc all rank much higher than illegal immigration. as causative or contributory factors. Illegal drugs (and alcohol abuse, a much larger problem) are another area entirely & the current U.S. response is largely insane- but that's for another thread.

RE: ...when this[hidden] population is freed to 'come out' it may well be less inclined to seek stoop labor and the like, and compete for other employment ...

To a small degree, perhaps. The loss of jobs / lack of employment opportunities overall in the U.S. is due to corporate greed, export of jobs to starvation-wage countries, idiocies like NAFTA, and domestic demand for ever cheaper and cheaper consumer goods (vide Wal-Mart) and damn the consequences(and the quality). The amount of competition from 'come-outers' would be inconsequential in comparison..

So while I agree that the problems you've identified are real, they're hardly caused by or the result of illegal immigration, nor will they be solved by eliminating illegal immigration. Recognizing and addressing the root causes of these problems might tend towards a solution – not the shibboleth of illegal immigration.

As far as every solution having both negative and positive effects, that's pretty much the way of the world, in my experience. The "win-win situation" is largely a myth.