immigrate what?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/10/immigration.enforcement.ap/index.html

What the fuck. Now we can come up with something meaningful? Where was this six months ago, or even 2 months ago?

Of the story itself, I saw one particular jewel of interest: "install by the end of the year an exit system so the departure of foreigners from the country can be recorded". If everyone was complaining that so much of the illegal immigrant problem had to do with people overstaying their visas, maybe it would have been helpful to have an organized method of exiting the country on those visas. But no, we didn't have one. We are just getting around to "installing" one. I can guarantee it's cheaper than building a damn fence around the country. Anybody notice those little sensors they have in stores that record people coming in and out? I didn't think so. That sort of technology linked up with a digital reader picking up on a visa with stored data on it would pretty much take care of it. Also if the visa has an expiration data it simply stops working unless it is replaced/updated by official reasonings. Like a credit card. Simple.

As far as the labor issues, there are a number of places where we punish the wrong people. Like with drugs, punish the enablers. It's the employers stupid. I don't care if people want to come here to get a job or education. Fine, good for them. I care if some yahoo knowingly or willfully employs people he knows to be illegal so he can skim off benefits or labor costs. That's the problem.

I tend to note that most Americans are overpaid in the global market. But that's largely because the global labor markets haven't caught up yet to the developed world. Our labor unions are busy trying to keep all sorts of overextended benefits programs and high-inflated wage structures, not to mention keeping employees on the job without demonstrating competence (hi teachers unions). What they should be doing instead is trying to get other countries as a measure of trade agreements to pay their workers fairer wages. Not necessarily our wages, but something better and comparable to the economic realities in SE Asia or China for example.

Or even Africa if it ever starts modernizing and isn't bogged down in corruption and genocidal conflicts. Come to think of it, if a person in Africa could get a decent wage paying job they liked, they probably wouldn't be trading a sack of grain for an AK-47. Guns are always cheaper than lives, but that's crazy cheap.