I am very happy to see this issue being confronted; although I have little faith in our elected leaders coming up with the best solution after their two week recess. What I do expect is a lot of posturing by both Republicans and Democrats.
We were watching CNN this evening and heard good points and bad points on both sides. Here are a couple of thoughts:
1) "Illegals come here and make $25,000 a year tax free . . . that's not fair"
-- Pretty much anyone, legal or illegal, pays little if any taxes on an annual income of $25,000. However, this is still not entirely true. There is still sales tax, income tax paid by employers, etc; so even illegal aliens pay taxes.
2) "Why should we pay for illegal immigrant children going to our schools?"
-- If you make this argument yourself . . . you'd better be willing to accept this argument from those who have no children and don't want to pay for your children's schooling. This is a no brainer. What nation really wants a larger population of uneducated people? Why can't we take advantage of the education process to help assimilate immigrants? Denying public schooling to immigrants will not eliminate the driving force for illegal immigration . . . it's only one out of 50 reasons people want to come here.
3) "Should we legalize something just because there are a lot of people braking the law?"
-- This is a great question, but I would suggest that the current laws are probably as flawed as their enforcement.
The point is we need more dialogue. I could care less who comes up with the solution . . . but I can guarantee it won't be a radical from the right or left. I hope there are more programs like the one we saw on CNN. I want to hear Senators selling us on their ideas not telling us how the other side is wrong.
