There has been lots of flac about immigration reform.

What gets me about all this, is what is he doing for those who are here legally? I can't tell you how many foreign friends I have, who are in the US legally and can't get citizenship. I have one friend from Ecuador who was in the US for almost 7 yrs as a student. Now that he has graduated, he is having problems being allowed to stay. He can no longer have a student visa and had to go back home. Now he's having problems getting a J-1 visa, even though he was in the US for 7 years already, legally. And that's not even citizenship! So I ask again Mr. Bush, what are you doing for those who follow the rules?

I know it probablydoesn't seem at all fair that illegal immigrants get residency status .. but it does make a lot of sense financialy .. All the time the 'illegals' are working they don't pay tax and 'escape' some of the plethora of financial rules and regs .. however once they become legal they will find themselves caught up in the ever moving trap of IRS .. at least then they will be contributing towards the upkeep of the country .. will find themselves liable for conscription .. all a lot better financially than the cost continually returning the folks to their home countries or the cost of prison .. And sometimes they really are nice folks who just want to better themselves ..

I am not an American citizen but I have one question that I wonder about Who will do the jobs that these people are doing for the same pay. If you read you own history books, the USA has for years invited immigrants to come in to the states to do menial labor, as Americans are not willing to be the parking lot attendants, fruit and vegetable pickers, factory workers. Are you prepared to pay a lot higher price for you daily good because a USA citizen person helped in it coming to your home. And what about the business owners that are sending the raw product to south America because even the illegal immigrants wants to much money. This is a problem that starts at the very bottom of the tree and even goes into the roots of your history and economy. Before you go shipping everyone out, you had best figure out how much you are willing to put up for their replacements, because it is going to cost you big bucks no doubt about that.

No matter how good that sounds in theory, it won't happen realistically. I live in a neighborhood full of illegals and they don't have the money to pay the fines the bill requires and they will never take a chance on returning to their homeland for fear of not being able to come back. They don't trust anyone that much. Also, there aren't enough government agents to track them all down and deal with them. That's why we have the problem we have now. Plus the fact, have you considered the cost of doing background checks on 20 million people? Who are they kidding? This whole deal is totally unrealistic. The most realistic way to get illegals to comply is the following: 1. Shut down our borders and get real strict about and become very strict about who comes in. 2. Cut them off welfare and other government services and make it a fireable offense to welfare workers if they give welfare to illegals. If we cut off the supply for welfare, those here will have to pay their own way instead of live off the government and use their under the table income to smuggle in relatives. Realistically I don't think we have enough INS agents to enforce the deal they are talking about. Not to mention the expense of it.

I doubt this will work. How many illegal immigrants do you think will be willing to leave this country to go back to their own country to do things legally? Lets think about this. They have no real guarantee that they will get to return if they have to stand in line like everyone else. Most of the illegal immigrants have been here for a number of years yet still can't speak English. They know that they are already here without having to do anything legally so why would they go ahead an pay fines and back taxes now? The only fair and just way to do things is to remove all of the illegals to send back to their own country. Let them prove that they deserve the right to be in the United States by standing in line to do it legally. Don't just make laws but also make sure that these laws are enforced. If someone enters this country illegally they have NO rights. Our border control agents shouldn't get into trouble for enforcing the laws of our land. We should be proud that they risk their lives to protect our country just like our soldiers do.

I don't think illegals should get any kind of amnesty. If you don't want to follow the rules and obey the laws for legal immigration, go home! People would not come forward for the fines and what-have-you. I can't see them going home to wait in line for the green cards, either. They've been here illegallly all this time, why would they leave? Round up all the illegals and ship them out!

I am sorry to do this, but I can't stop laughing that you believe this. FIrst of all, we already have a guest worker program and we don't need another one. You fail to understand there legal immigrants all 12 to 20 even maybe 30 million ILLEGIALS that crossed our border ILLEGIALLY. Did I mention that they crossed our border ILLEGIALLY, are given FULL legal status. It is only if they want to become citizens that they have to pay the fines, go back to their home country, and perform a back ground check. So lets put it together: when this bill is signed they will all be legal immigrants. They are ALL entitled to government aide. If you thought it was great to pay someone not to work pay for 20 million Mexicans not to work. Next thing is it is only a matter of time after the bill is signed that some bleeding heart liberal starts saying those fines are too harsh, and we need to do away with them. And let me inform you that they did this same thing in 1986, back then we had 5 million illegals in our country, and the irony of the situation is the wording was the same. There was a wall in the bill, the only wall that ever got built was in San Diego, CA. The democrates cut off all funding to it. Yes, you heard me correctly the '86 bill didn't work, How do you think this bill is going to work? Come on people wake up quit believing everything you are told.

This is a lot to go through to come to America. It's a good idea in a way though with everything going on with the war and everything.

I admit that does seem better than some of the other choices. However I have never felt that fences and border control will make that much of a difference. I lived in Germany when they had the wall in Berlin and a fence all the way along the border beween East and West Germany, guard posts everyplace and they did not make all that much difference. Sure when one person was caught or shot it was big publicity. They was also families who were separated and they still got across. People on the West were even friendly with the East German guards on the rural fenced areas.

the reason it wont work is they wont do it ! Also who would take a job as a border controll agent they would end up in jail for doing thier job??Oh i forgot the ilegals would do it LOL

Let's c if it works. Bush concentrates too much on foreign affairs. He should work on domestic issues first then foreign.

It won't work though. They will never pay the fines. ANd they will never go back home to "wait in line" It is becoming ridiculous when illegal immigrants have more rights than lawful, law abiding citizens. Yea, you can deport them, but they are usually back within a week or so. I used to work at a place that was over 95% illegal. They would actually go on vacations to their country and come back right on time. What does that tell you about our borders? I think there needs to be something done, but this bill just doesn't seem like it will get the "job" done.

I have to agree with alot of others who have responded to this discussion. This policy will not work for a number of reasons. One being that all of the illegals will not come forward because they are unable to pay the fines and back taxes. Another reaon is because they won't want to take the chances of being sent back to their own country without some kind of guarantee that they will be allowed to return. Third, our goernment makes laws that they aren't enforcing. Why bother to make laws when there is no intention of actually enforcing them? I believe that if these illegal immigrants wanted to be a citizen of this country then they would have respected this country enough to follow the proper procedures and follow the laws of the land. We need to start enforcing our laws and start sending these people back to their own countries. Let our border patrol agents due their jobs and quit punishing them when they try to.