[jhancock]

> "You load the illegals on boats and drop them off at a home port"

And the receiving country is just supposed to take our word for it? "Hell, he sure looks Guatemalan!!!"...."Dear China, We are sending you 50,000 'orientals' on the next 3 OOCL container ships, they have no passports but they sure as hell don't speak American." Yeah, this will go over well with all our trading partners.

> "In the case of Mexico you take them to the far south, not just over the border."

I'm pretty sure Mexico won't go for this.

> "get the illegals out and seal the borders"

Have nanotech magic-growth fences been invented and I didn't notice? Precisely how do you plan to do this? Oh I know, hire cheap Mexican labor? Or maybe bring over some Chinese to build the fences like we used them to build our railroads?

> "Nobody making less than $90K should be let in this country to work"

Aren't immigrants making over $90k taking $90k jobs away from people already here? Or do you mean we figure out what our real skill shortage is and manage it much better than we ever have been able to?

[catzaa]

> Have nanotech magic-growth fences been invented and I didn't notice? Precisely how do you plan to do this? Oh I know, hire cheap Mexican labor? Or maybe bring over some Chinese to build the fences like we used them to build our railroads?

I do not have a problem with the rest of your post - but this statement isn't correct. A lot of countries have in the past successfully secured their borders. Even in lower technology times this was successfully done.

[kingkongrevenge]

What would Mexico or China do about it? Nothing. Be realistic. The US still comes from a position of strength (for now).

> Have nanotech magic-growth fences been invented and I didn't notice?

The border was fairly tight for most of US history. Don't pretend this is a technology problem. This is a corruption and lack of will problem. It could be solved in short order given the will. As I alluded to, Ike responded to a growing problem and effectively dealt with it in the space of about three months. It remained solved pretty much until the early 70s.

[jhancock]

I would like to see meaningful data on how both "The border was fairly tight for most of US history" and how "Ike" cleaned things up so efficiently.

You may be able to solve your fence problem by having extremely strict laws punishing U.S. citizens that engage in employing illegals. I doubt any other approach would work.

I also don't know what the economic impact of losing the gray/black market labor would be and how long it would take to recover from it the changes.