Hold on a minute. Give Specter some credit, he's onto something. Why should working in the US be an automatic ticket to naturalization? This is just a tacit assumption that until now has been made on both sides of the debate. Graham has a point too, a big point.

The obvious answer is to make make living and working in the US a NOT a ticket to citizenship, but still keep it as a requirement for those who do seek to become citizens. Besides, we have to remember that at the very least half of the Mexicans who come here illegally to work do so without any desire to stay here permanently or become a US citizen. They're just in it for the money.

And if the rules are changed and illegals are legalized in the process, that is most definitely NOT amnesty. It's a change of the rules, not an exception made to them. It's no more amnesty than raising the speed limit from 55 to 70 miles per hour is "amnesty" for all those who broke the old speed limit.

One solution to this whole mess would be to make the movement of labor part of NAFTA, where any Mexican, Canadian, or American could live and work in each others' countries, renewable every two years, by simply paying a $500 dollar entrance fee to the host country. By doing so we would eliminate every reason any Mexican ever had for sneaking across our border. Our southern border would become 100% controllable without us having to spend another nickel on border security. We could screen, photograph, fingerprint and track every soul that crosses.

By neutralizing the laws of supply and demand at our borders, we would enjoy a level of security that no 2000+ mile wall could ever provide us. And by making it a part of NAFTA, we would be able to show preference to our neighbors without throwing the doors open to every migrant in the world.

yours/
peter.