[mrnoodle]

Put your knee back in joint. Our grandparents were legal immigrants. Legal.

Legal.

They did not break the law and expect everyone else to congratulate them for it. I have no doubt that, like any other group of people, illegal immigrants comprise both good and bad folks. I'm sure they just want to make a living. I've worked alongside them in factories, warehouses, and fields. Half of my friends are of Mexican descent, several are from Mexico, and I can't count the number of people from that country I've hung out with over the years.

Oh by the way....a great number of them are pissed off that their countrymen are bringing heat down on the heads of honest, law-abiding immigrants. But if you think that any substantial number of illegals are paying taxes (or anything else), you're high. "It's estimated" is a garbage phrase. There is no way to estimate anything about them -- it's pure guesswork, because no one knows how many of them are here.

It's estimated that 100% of the illegals I worked with in a motorcycle helmet factory several years ago were paid in cash, and it was barely enough to get drunk on. You want burden? One of them broke his leg (actually it was nearly torn off) in a garbage compactor, and after he went to the emergency room, immigration got wind of the situation and cleared almost the whole factory out. Who knows what his bill was for the leg? Who knows what the cost of running his 50-odd coworkers through the system was? Who cares, anyway. We better cough it up, or else we're racist and xenophobic.

Yes, we should have compassion. That's why I said we should make it easier to get in legally. I think there should be some leeway for people who have been here a long time and have proven themselves to be productive members of our society. But fuck this noise about "if you don't like illegals pouring over the borders in record numbers, you're against Mexicans." It's a lie.