Interesting recent Cato Institute white paper on immigrants' impact on the US budget

Immigrants are great, just don't jump the fence to get here, get in line.

I generally agree. But the other side of that is don't make that "line" too difficult to get into. Make sure that line is open to anyone who is willing to be fingerprinted, documented, and generally able to support themselves. 

Anybody with a brain knows that immigrants, legal AND illegal, are and have always been a net benefit to our society. But Trumping reason, as it always does, is the urge to express racial hatred and for Republicans, the opportunity to scapegoat a group to solidify their power.

It worked for Hitler and the Jews, after all. And Republicans know that very well.

A white paper isn't needed to prove the obvious. And it won't do a thing to convince the ignorant and the haters, any more than a 14th-century treatise about how the earth revolves around the sun would have opened anyone's eyes.

We went from having a wide open border to now deporting day laborers with children.

Is it really so hard to find common sense policy in the middle of that somewhere?

Don't buy into the MAGA "wide open border" narrative! We've always had a controlled border. Is it fortified, with barbed wire, minefields, machine gun nests, guard towers, and searchlights? No. But every road crossing is gated and controlled.

Physically preventing illegal immigration is as pointless, expensive, and difficult as physically preventing any other crime. All we can and should do about any crime is punish it, in order to discourage it.

And the punishment ought to be proportionate to the amount of actual harm the crime does!

So given that Manuel slipping across the border to pick tomatoes for the summer is a harmless and victimless crime, I would recommend that we don't spend very much time or effort on preventing it.

Here's what I would do. Get very strict with Manuel's EMPLOYER. Make sure they record and document the basic info on every worker they hire. Make it mandatory that they have ID, apply for a SS card, and obtain a work permit. If they don't, they can't work, and if the employer hires them anyway, make THAT a serious crime, with stiff penalties. Make employers submit guest worker rosters every, say, month during the season.

As far as the border itself goes, I've seen how the EU does it. No border barriers, no customs checks, nothing but a "Welcome to..." sign. Why can't we do that with the NAFTA nations? God knows, it would save money.

I won't dignify the THAR ALL RAPISTS AND MURDERERERS AND TERORITS argument except to say, the "threat" isn't of great enough magnitude to justify preventing it, given the immense cost and effort to do so.

Hmm, weird, I remember bulldozers removing barb wire from sections of Texas border and the Rio Grande, border wall being removed in sections to make holes, hundreds of thousands of people trekkiing up from South America (and from scores of other countries as well) and just coming right in, welcomed by the previous administration.

What are you smoking today?  

Controlled?  Yes, it is now.  It was not then.  

And if any 'sleeper cells' activate, we know which party is responsible for welcoming them in during the last administration, that's on you liberals for making our country unsafe.

I like the 'support themselves' part.  That seems to be lacking.

Out of curiosity are you aware of why we have an asylum system?

To give people like Inigo the mental health care they so desperately need.

What you "remember" occured only in your head.