As Alex pointed out, innovation and invention can take the place of field workers when economically feasable.

I wish I could remember the details of this.....about 40 years ago there was a strike in California of tomato pickers. At that point in time no one had yet developed a machine that could pick them and it was not practical to spend the money to do so. During a threatened strike by tomato pickers, a farmer worked with existing fruit picking machines and developed one that could pick tomatos without crushing them.

Since the labor was going to cost more, the machine was developed, and there was no longer a need for tomato pickers.

I would suspect that automation is possible for a lot of these job when wage demands escalate.

Growing up in Southwest Washington strawberries were the big crop and they came to harvest just as school got out for the summer. Pretty much every kid I knew put in time at the fields getting their $.50 per flat and finding out just how hard the work was. I think I was 13 the first time my mom woke me up at 6 a.m. and dragged me out the strawberry fields.

GC, at what point do you think our minimum wage laws, workplace protection laws, and employee right laws should be discarded to prevent an industry from leaving the country? Where we will then protest the corporations use of underpaid foreign labor without the basic protections we grant in the United States? And did you ever think you'd end up on the same side of an issue as evil corporations?

Not necessarily. These businesses would just do what Wal*Mart is doing. Go to where they can find cheap labor.
I think if it is made clear that this is amnesty for people here already, but after a certain time they could be held as felons would be ideal. However, how do you prove who got here when? That's the tough part.. I think it won't be seen as an incentive if the rules are strictly enforced after that.

Maybe you wouldn't see wage increases or automation and the industry would move elsewhere. But so? I don't see how low-wage unprotected workers is worth the tradeoff for cheaper local artichokes.

The point you raise about amnesty is one that a lot of people raise. And that is why they want to see an period of strong enforcement before amnesty is discussed. When Reagan did his big amnesty back in the '80s the promise was the it would mark a new age of strict border enforcement. Obviously that didn't happen and a lot of people came in (post amnesty illegal immigration is much higher than pre-amnesty) hoping for another amnesty at some point down the road. That amnesty was also supposed to be one-time thing for the ones already here.

Obviously, since we're discussing it again, "one time thing" is hard to enforce on the future.

I agree with the points you've made here. But I am not seeing the whole story get discussed

I hope you reserve as much criticism for the businessmen who hire "these people", in violation of our laws, as you do for the illegal immigrants themselves.

I think you probably do, but that doesn't seem to get discussed NEARLY as much.

Part of what needs to be fixed is more funding and more agents. The system is obviously completely overwhelmed at the moment and has been for some time. But that isn't really the issue here. The issue is, should we just allow anyone into this country with no safeguards whatsoever? Why even have a legal process if there is no penalty whatsoever for sidestepping that process?

The only "sudden" part of this is that politicians are now seeing that people are pissed off about this and the media sees a story that people are interested in. But this didn't become important to me because CNN started covering it. It has been one of my many gripes with this and former administrations for a long time. You are absolutely right, things should have never come to this point. We should have been taking this seriously for a long time and we didn't and we are paying a price now.

If there are fear tactics being used, they are the "nobody would ever do these jobs but illegal immigrants." There is no truth to that statement. An accurate statement would be "nobody is willing to do this work at the wage being offerred to illegal immigrants." Offer someone 10 bucks an hour to do this work and you would see that pile of applications materialize in a heartbeat.

Years ago, when I lived on Long Island, we had two family friends that were both landscapers. They supported their family by doing this and they did the work themselves. I'm sure that they were paid more than $4 an hour but they had plenty of work and didn't go out of business. People were willing to pay whatever they charged or they didn't use their services. I'm having a hard time understanding why it worked then but could never possibly work now.

I think that's cool.
I don't think those things should be compromised to prevent someone from leaving. I think it would be up to the consumer to see if they'd put up with that kind of thing. They don't seem to mind going to Wal*Mart to buy their cheap clothes and lawn furniture, they probably wouldn't mind if Earthbound Farms moved their crops to South America...
I don't know if I'm on the side of big corporations. But I do see your point. I keep thinking that these people have to work somewhere. Ideally, if they got here the right way things would be perfect. However, we enabled them to be here by being shoddy with our border security. So what happens next? They work nowhere and starve. Then you'd have the thieves and rapists. There needs to be some inbetween place for these people. There isn't.

I reserve more criticism for the employers than for the illegal immigrants. I understand why the illegal immigrants are here and didn't wait in line to do things properly. There is an underlying nobility in motive for why most of them do it.

Penalties for employers should be swift and severe. I'll be happy to talk about that too, but this has been about what to do with the people already here and the people crossing over.

I wonder, how would turning illegal immigration into a felony hold up to ex post facto scrutiny?

I agree with all of this as well. Certainly, the demand is the main issue. Make strictly enforced penalties for the corporations that hire illegals and it will go a long way towards fixing this problem.