[Edward64]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

And you, me, other U.S citizens and permanent residents, and other illegals that the government has provided special loopholes for get our benefits subsidized by them. So from a totally self interest point of view, why would we give that up? To adhere to immigration law? When have we ever done that?

We've "given up" illegal labor and made them legal back in 1986. So there is precedence.

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 - Wikipedia.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act altered U.S. immigration law by making it illegal to hire illegal immigrants knowingly and establishing financial and other penalties for companies that employed illegal immigrants. The act also legalized most undocumented immigrants who had arrived in the country prior to January 1, 1982.

So what is your threshold? We have already acknowledged that it can't be zero not just for practical reasons but at least in part for the resources they provide our economy.

I've answered what my threshold is below. The reality is since I do not control INS, Border Security etc, and because I believe compromise is necessary to get a bill through, I accept there will be some "leakage". I am willing to accept this leakage for something like the Dignity Act which contains stuff I support and other stuff that is questionable.

But my default position is get rid of all illegals either by kicking them out and/or converting (most of) them into non-voting, guest-worker-like visa.

I am saying any % of illegals is too much. Yes, there will always be some % of illegals for all practical purposes, but we aren't doing much about the 11M already here ... other than accepting it (and allowing more in).

Keeping with my stated position on how the U.S. views immigration in general, if we could thrive without the contributions of undocumented workers, we would already be doing so.

We don't need illegals. We do need legal alternatives with a holistic immigration reform bill. I stated below as my previous bullet #3. But you are right, without alternatives to current illegal labor (e.g. holistic immigration reform bill), it'll be a big frackup.

3) Continuing with immigration merit/skills thought process, there is nothing I can think of that the "economic benefits of illegal immigration brings" that would not be matched/exceeded with "economic benefits of legal immigration + increased guest workers". So yeah, my preference is legal > illegal.

Again, what does this mean?

Despite all of the scare tactics, we can say with 99.999999% clarity that illegal immigrants do not vote. Outside of being one side's boogeyman to scare its base, they are not impacting elections in one way or another. Can we please stop with the foolishness?

I am not saying the illegals are voting now. If you think I did say this, please quote me and I'll apologize.

I am saying if illegals are provided a pathway to citizenship, the 11M can greatly influence elections. There are approx 2M Cuban-Americans in Florida and they exert political pressure.

Beyond that if the current 11M illegal immigrants were provided an pathway to citizenship, it would be no different than what the government has done in the past e.g. The Cuban Exodus even though others were waiting in the green card queue. If/When they became citizens, they would then be exercising their right to vote just like any other citizen. These citizens would impact elections in the exact same way as any other citizen does.

That's right. And depending on what party you belong to, you either like or dislike how the Cuban-American population significantly impact FL elections.

When you say that you don't want them to impact elections, is the fear that the current 11M are all going to lean for the Democrats or all for the Republicans? Is it demographics based? I don't want to jump to the wrong conclusions.

Good question. In my previous comments, I did not commit to either "lean Dems or Reps". It really depends if Dems/Reps change/adapt and cater to the new reality (e.g. what can they concede to the 11M illegals to get their votes).