[theTurkey]

I think the very fact that it would be so easy to close the border yet it remains wide open is very telling. It tells me that our government and current powers that be recognize our countries economic dependence on this cheap and willing labor pool. Ask restaurant owners how they feel about shutting off their supply of busboys, line cooks, chefs, and dishwashers. Ask our agribusiness CEOs who will be planting, harvesting, doing all of the hands on back breaking labor required to supply the demand for organic produce. A huge segment of the less glamorous jobs that our society depends on are filled by those you seek to seal out. To paraphrase Fight Cub, "They cook your food, they clean your floors, they watch your children..." The consumers in America demand low prices from our service sector industries and especially on our necessities like groceries. Americans don't refuse these jobs out of laziness, but because the pay and benfits not to mention social stigmata often associated with those jobs makes them unattractive.

I find the hypocrisy, of a country built on and comprised of primarily immigrants, calling out to seal the borders laughable. I don't often see an anti-immigration rally populated by native americans. I see a lot of people whose parents, grandparents or recent ancestors came to this country either during its period as a colony of England when immigration was a part of conquest, or during our countries formative years when we encouraged everyone who could survive the boat ride over to come on in. Our countries current demand for immigrant labor far outstrips the ability of legal immigration programs to supply that labor. Those folks running across the border aren't doing it to become homeless; they find jobs and are often employed before they cross the border through family or friends already here. As long as this demand exists people will come.