Illegal immigration MAKES the US an enormous amount of money. Cutting off that flow of money will affect big business, and those people will go knocking on the Oval Office door, and have some very nasty words to say to Tinyhands McDickpunch.

Lost in all of this conversation is the impact of the soft power in the river of cash flowing back to Mexico from all these workers over here. A good chunk of them come over here, work their asses off, and send EVERYTHING not food and rent back home. This is a hard number to pin down, but most of the anti-immigrant sites gravitate around 50 billion a year Think if we were giving Mexico $50 Billion a year via taxes, there would be riots in Texas and the Midwest. But this river of what amounts to free foreign aide is a HUGE soft power tool. This money, from the people I have met, goes home to pay for housing, food, clothing, education and the other things that families need to dig out of poverty. The Mexican government, if it is smart, wants more people crossing the border and sending cash back home, and wants an end to the drug war so those people can cross safer.

The cost to taxpayer number, also forgets something. Many of these people pay into Medicare and SSI but then go home and don't need/use the services they provide. Also the illegals, and from SoCal I knew a ton of them, want nothing at all to do with la policia because la policia becomes la migra and the family back home gets cut off from its cash source. The guys coming over here to work need to be allowed in. The guys coming over here to fight a drug war, stir shit and steal everything not bolted down need to be vetted out. The last time a state got uppity and passed a wide ranging anti immigrant bill? Georgia's farmers has 140 million in crops rot because there were no people to pick, pack and do the shit labour needed