If we were serious about the problem, then we would have to attack the demand side – Whether by raising the minimum wage so that the set of “jobs Americans just won’t do” shrinks or by finding an effective, efficient manner to deter employers from hiring illegals (a national ID system? Perhaps, but the ‘biometric data’ thing gives me the willies to a degree.) I don’t know enough about the details of the issue to say which is more likely to work well.

A second point is asking why so many of the immigrants are illegal. I find it hard to believe that they are just lawless types – more likely that they would like to imigrate legally and are unable to do so for quota reasons or otherwise. Is this wise? If ‘acceptable’ (i.e. non-terrorist, non-criminal) people want to come in and fill a need, why are we stopping them?

Finally, I categorically reject a ‘guest-worker’ program. If you want to design a system to incentivise employer mistreatment of workers who have no real recourse, I’m not sure you could do better than by making the worker’s very presence in country contingent upon employer good will while limiting employee’s ability to seek redress. But that’s just me.

It’s ridiculous that we have thousands of smart people working for the federal government and this is what we’ve come up with. Build a wall and deport all the illegals. Brilliant.

(And no, I don’t have a better idea – yet. Set me up with a salary, a desk, some paper and pens, nonfat iced lattes, salad, and my ipod, for a month, and I’ll take care of it.) I know it’s harder than that, but not all that much.

And yes, a wall would be a lot of money. But we’re past the “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” part. We need to get this people naturalized, and along with that we need to keep them from coming into the country.

I just don’t see any other way.

A wall would be a lot of money. I’m not particularly concerned with “how it looks” so much as “would it work.” I need a lot more convincing before supporting such a monumental project–but I’m keeping an open mind. Afteall, the wall they built in San Diego directly led to a drop in crime–on both sides of the border.

Seriously, I think building a wall between us and Mexico would just look really bad. The Great Wall of the United States, I guess. Cause we really need to keep out those scary and dangerous Mexicans. And, don’t even get me started on the Canadians. WTF???

I know why people want a wall, but surely we can come up with a better immigration plan to solve all these problems. Or, maybe not.

Actually, I don’t think that it’s feasible, or at least a good use of the money (I’ll admit to possible — most physical things are if you throw enough money at them) to build the wall. Putting it into building up Mexico’s economy to the point where the economic push to go north drops noticably would seem to be more to the point. And quite possible cheaper.

Not to mention that, if you are going to build a fence on the southern border, it’s hard to avoid the thought that maybe you might need to build one on the northern border as well (not to mention the Alaskan border). Which would be several times more expensive, and have no redeeming feature except symmetry. And then there would be all those long coast-lines in need of attention — and we won’t even start on Alaska’s coastline.

In short, the answer to Andrew’s question (”Why not?”) is simple: it ain’t worth the price.