I'll drink to that.

What I get from this article is that no one has the right to control the borders of their country.

This is truly a toxic idea.

Do I have the right to move to South America, say the Amazon, consider myself as having just as much right to that area as the indigenous peoples, harvest their land for my profit and their destruction, and then move on to a more lucrative location and leave them behind to die? Why not, there is nothing in this article that would deny me that right.

FredRated has described to a T the behavior and "rights" of a corporation!

Are our borders protected from foreign investment? No? Yikes! Build a

wall!

Why shouldn't a human being have as many rights as a legal entity called

a corporation?

"Ye shall have the same law for the stranger as for one of your own country."

Leviticus 24:22.

Wow, that's a neat trick.

In the original context, having "the same law for the stranger" means that you stone the stranger to death for blasphemy, even if he's not a member of your religion. Yet this John Bingham fellow turned it into a call for tolerance. Amazing. Let's hear it for selective quotation!

As well as attempting to undermine equality by denying citizenship by birthright, many of our learn-ed legislators are floating the concept of partial citizenship i.e. guestworker programs, and non-citizen I.D.s etc...

One of Gandhi's firsts acts of civil disobedience was to publicly burn South Africa's required registration card (for the country's Indian population.) Half citizens are not a solution either.

Unfortunately it appears too many think we regular folk who oppose open immigration and "full rights" for illegals are a collection of "anti-immigration" zealots". Apparently it never occurs to them that we are the regular every day working Americans worrying about their ability to pay the rent and the future of the kids - working families that used to compose the left's core constituencies.. but now, disgustingly, lefties like the Salon crowd don't even pretend to.

The job of worrying about Mexican citizens ,frankly, is that of the Mexican government. The job of American political forces is to worry about Americans - not multinational conglomerates - and not illegal Mexicans either.

None but a fool would believe the rightwing's dedication to halting illegal immigration. Illegal immigration could be brought to a near halt in a month or two if the right would do what it has repeatedly demonstrated it is incapable of doing - substantially fining the companies that hire illegals into the stone age. Besides, along with corporate created foreign work visas (H1B and L1) legal immigration has

in fact displaced more working Americans than illegal immigration and has threated our very technical innovation and leadership. However you never see the rightwing Republicans talking about that - likely because it doesn't have the by-product advantage of conjuring up images of scary,sweaty Mexicans that illegal immigration has to rile the nutty rightwing base with.

Similarly, th "compromise" being proposed by the bought and paid for corporate puppeteers in the Republican Congress should not be fallen for. It is nothing more than a means to create and maintain a permanent underclass of cheap labor for American business that can't protest, vote, or join labor unions.

Why is it wrong to not want criminals in this country? People who come here illegally are criminals. They work under the table, do not assimilate, do not learn the language and avail themselves of many government services. Those of us who oppose this craziness are neither bigots nor racists. We just do not wish to condone criminal behavior.

The 14th Amendment needs to be changed - to specify that all persons LEGALLY RESIDENT born or naturalized in the United States are citizens. Simple, and striking at the root of the problems from current wave of illegal immigrants into the USA. Illegals enter the US, have children which become citizens, and then are used as magnets for remining in the USA. In the most blunt terms, these parents are profiting from the result of a crime.

Couple that to penalities on employers that hire illegals and some form of physical control at the border (read as wall) and I think you have a deal that most people in the USA could support. Maybe even a national ID card to establish residency. But who is suggesting such a "grand compromise?"

I don't think the current "hysteria" over immigrants is racist or anything of the sort - the simple motivation is economic. The tax base of many cities, states and municipalities is being pushed to the wall by the influx of people that are not paying taxes to support the schools and social services that they use. That is not racist - it is simple survival where you see your local taxes raised over and over.

And is is a false comparision to rail against the immigration waves in the past - most, if not all of those immigrants passed through government immigrant points - Ellis Island anyone? They at least had the mark of legal entry - the protests aganist the immigrants were a reflection of the time.

Why is it when an employer is presented with a falsified social security number by a perspective employee, it is not immediately flagged as invalid? They have to enter a number so the employee/employer can pay taxes. We can check credit cards on line at the grocery, why not Social Security numbers? Why does the same not happen at schools when kids are entered and their parent's SS numbers are entered to establish residency?

I don't want to be anti-Immigrant, but as an expatriate who has worked all over the world, I can tell you that most countries are tough in enforcing entry and work permits. Why does the US have to be the patsy?

The USA has become the neighborhood whore. Anyone can come in, use us for awhile and leave. Never giving anything back. We've sent that message to the world that we're a global free-for-all. I've seen countless illegals, visa overstays and "temp" HB-1 workers come here in a country they dislike and treat with contempt solely for economic reasons. But we let them come. It's not because they like us or want to add to the country. Quite a few of them are abusive to native born citizens. It's for the money. And we shove aside people who are already here to make room for them in our universities and work spaces.