Barbara Ehrenreich's article on illegal immigrants is but one more example of the guilt-ridden white liberal who's willing to overlook criminal acts (illegals who use fake Social Security numbers are committing a felony) on the part of a minority group due to their victimhood. She and other like her such as the liberal establishment have permitted hordes of illegals to take over black neighborhoods in places like Los Angeles and do the their jobs for much lower cost. What's progressive about that? And as another letter writer commented, Barbara Ehrenreich shows her true racist colors by giving preference to illegals from Mexico or Guatemala over, say, Africans. If the goal is to give the poorest of the poor a chance, lets send boats to places like Africa and India and bring over hundreds of millions of their poor who are in much worse shape than Mexicans.

Vince Hamon-Enriquez

Los Angeles, CA

In my eighth year of sobriety I made it to a semester of community college six years ago at the age of 43. I couldn't afford to continue, however, because my physical strength wasn't enough to do some kind of OJT job where I'd gain skill at something like construction and move up the ladder. Working at temp jobs in construction labor as a helper I saw firsthand how big companies hire dozens of Hispanic undocumenteds through a patsy sub-contractor and then harass that guy for every last piece of work his "team" would get done, main contractors always holding out on the illegals while they pocketed huge bonuses because they would accomplish the work ahead of schedule and under cost.

Walking into the woods for going on three years now to sleep every night, my hands now no longer have the strength to do any menial job for very long, and as I approach my 51st birthday I am going to try to get shelter at some halfway house downtown in a probably dangerous neighborhood. While I've had my skull fractured twice from being asssaulted, maybe at least my likely next assailant will be a citizen from a neighborhood that's been neglected long enough to go on hating any white interlopers (both assaults on me were by African-Americans), because of course they never began with a level playing field, and all the civil rights in the world don't mean anything when there aren't any recruiters breaking down the doors in the inner city to try to keep blacks from making money in more entrepreneurial ways without the successful classes help. We know some of those entrepreneurial efforts result in extended prison terms because one race prefers a different form of one illicit drug in particular. The moral of the story? I would rather be next to an angry young black man that has a history than an illegal immigrant who is likely to support the kind of classism hurting people left back because of long ago addictions and a few poor life choices.

I've saved people from violence on a few occasions. I've written one really good poem that my PhD'd brother said was wistful, hopeful.. I've accepted long ago that although addiction is a disease, I no longer qualify for a government program that promised that I'd be educated after a four-year tour in the army. I've a slower ability to learn after the trauma to my head in the service but have no ability to prove this qualifies me for any additional help, educational or basic support. So many people that basically play by the rules can't afford the runaway inflation for tuition in any school, and unless you have health insurance through your job, I don't think most people really understand how far little health problems can set back the average poor person.

The dirty secret of immigration is that it's just a continuing form of discrimination that now merges both racism and class warfare. The least little investment the writer of the article I'm commenting on in her lawn care probably over a few years denies one or two legal contractors thousands of dollars they might have used to support education or health care for their families. Her argument about the contributions to the Social Security coffers are meaningless when we realize the true cost of actually having any system where immigrants seem assimilated enough to make a playing field in which the classes that are left behind aren't factored into the economic indicators used to advocate this laissez-fare treatment of labor. You can't imagine how really hard it is to do manual labor to feed oneself when we get older, and the fact it hasn't paid me enough to even afford to rent a roof over my head is just an example of not being willing to share a two-bedroom apartment with ten other men, or remaining trapped in a blighted community ignored by inflating health and education costs which are to a great extent the product of the tremendous demand for those services by the inflow of legal and illegal immigrants.

People that allow this to continue are reverse racists; they will allow any beefed-up border security to be sidetracked for the least little reason; they won't vote the admittedly massive resources it would really take to enforce the border or do decent background checks on the people already here. They've already got theirs, and want to go on getting the dividends received by cheap lawn care, construction labor and restaurant labor staring them right in the face every day. Even I don't want to pay $5 for a head of lettuce. But they won't meet me half-way. And so I'll fade away to my halfway house in the ghetto and forsake what it should have meant to be a citizen because they believe they have been given a privilege that's more important than a system of law.

Bret Erwin

Gaithersburg, MD

Finish the sentence. Americans won't do this work...for a slave wage. Further, these people are paid peanuts by their employers, but given huge amounts of assistance from government programs paid by taxpayers--i.e., the Wal-mart Model. This is actually a formula for lucrative industries to be further subsidized by the government.

People who are for the immigration laws are sadly uninformed and demonstrate no understanding of the effects these immigrants will bring to the American working poor. This is a pure and simple formula to undermine wages at this economic level. Americans know too well that working at these slave wages are actually destructive to their well being. How? First of all, no one can work at these wages unless they are being supported by someone else. It's impossible to live on these wages, and so the person is forced to be someone's dependent in order to have the "luxury" of spending any time serving someone at this wage. Further these jobs never offer health care, so then again, you have to be supplied medical by a parent, spouse, or the government. Always at great hardships for these individuals.

For most all people at the lower economic levels there is no medical plan. We suffer and die without benefit of medical help. To add insult to injury, it is usually the case that these low-paying jobs are physically demanding while not offering medical benefits. People that bend and carry burdens, toil and clean filth, as well as have high exposure to manufacturing chemicals and agricultural toxins are asked to do so without benefit of medical services. If these workers become ill they are dismissed to whatever illnesses or injuries they aquired doing this work to fend for themselves like wild animals.

We need to honor these jobs as valid work worthy of a living wage...not find a way to justify paying people less than a living to do them. When Hitler begin his ethnic cleansing, he provided industry with free work provided by Jews sent to work camps who then were worked to death. This is a lesser form of the same formula.

I love people and I love ethnic diversity. I do not, however, love formulas that justify the belief that a human being is supposed to work without making enough money to live on even at the lowest level of poverty without medical care.

Leslie Nova

Spokane, WA

My grandchildren are partly of Mexican ancestry. I live in a neighborhood that is increasingly becoming Hispanic. I have no problems with them. There are no gangs, and no criminal activity. They work hard and they are friendly. They are not the problem!

The problem is big business using them to drive down wages in this country. The multinationals are attempting to drive down wages in this country by outsourcing jobs and industries overseas, and in sourcing cheap labor, both legal and illegal, into this country. We now have over 300 million people in this country. I would think with 300 million people it would not be difficult to find the right people for every job. They are doing for this country what NAFTA did for Mexico. They are attempting to create a two-class system of the very wealthy and the working poor without a social safety net. The US, Mexico, and the world face the same problem, which is "free trade." Since I first read about Alexander Hamilton tariff policies in high school and benefited from them, I have been a protectionist. It was behind trade barriers that we became a major industrial power, and we can be one again. There is no reason why Mexico and the world cannot benefit from tariffs too. There is no independence without economic independence. The world economy cannot be controlled, but every country can control their little piece of the world.

Pervis J. Casey

Riverside, CA

In response to Ms. Cisnero's web letter about lack of native-born workers lining up for the less desirable jobs: You pay me a living wage to pick tomatoes or strawberries, change bed sheets or mow lawns and I will gladly do those jobs. But don't use the lack of labor as a pretext to justify illegal people being used as slave-wage workers. Lack of native born labor is due to lack of a livable wage.

I cannot live in any town in the United States with a decent standard of living from picking strawberries at the wage offered. Get real!

Roy L. Payne

San Jose, CA

The issue here is plain and simple; those who have 'b-r-o-k-e-n the l-a-w of the l-a-n-d' with respect to immigration, are to be considered illegal aliens.

Let me break this down further using a simple metaphor; if some one is caught trying to enter a theatre or 'show' through the back-door without paying for the ticket like all the others are doing at the front,what happens to that person?? I think I have made my point.

To spin and twist the issue any other way, is to lie about the whole thing.

Paul Amigo

Appalachia, VA

What is it exactly that Americans are willing to give up and maintain our current comfortable quality of life? Where are the lines of the strong and healthy in "legal" status waiting for the jobs to pick strawberries and tomatoes, in the packing houses that convert the tomatoes into ketchup, where are the lines of able bodied workers to wash the towels and sheets from hospitals and hotels, where are the lines of those who clean hotel rooms, and the lines of workers who care for the elderly in nursing homes and many who take care of kids? So what will you give up?

This is a complex issue and attacking Ehrenreich does not make it any less complex.

Rochelle Cisneros

Cocoa Beach, FL

Stop trying to "fix" the old laws with complicated "new" laws--that will not be enforced any more than the old laws were. Repeal, redress or whatever it takes to get rid of NAFTA or any other free trade bill, with a fair trade bill (meaning only trade with countries that honor workers rights and a living wages). Enforce the laws we have, such as fining and/or imprisoning employers who hire illegal workers. Arrest those who have and are making or using illegal documents and those who let them. Double-check Social Security numbers. The problem would fix itself in a few years.

Susan Nelsen

Olympia, WA

Radio Personality Thom Hartmann argues very succinctly that the population of "illegal" immigrants is silently supported by those who gain the most from the cheap labor. It is becoming more evident that the aims of the American oligarchy is to destroy the strength of the middle class by dissolving unions, allowing cheap labor to filter in through the borders and to send our manufacturing to cheap labor offshore. Many of us know that this country is becoming more fascistic day by day and we refuse to acknowledge it. I saw a bumper sticker that quoted: "If you're not appalled, you're not paying attention!"

Currently the best solution we have to protect our middle class is to solve the hiring of undocumented workers by fining the employers who hire illegal workers, place tariffs on products made off-shore by forced cheap labor, child labor and concentration work camps.

The ignorance of my fellow members on the "left" is to turn a blind eye to the practice of hiring illegal workers without having a notion about the strategies of the "right." The oligarchy wants to destroy the infrastructure of the middle class and create a native-born economic slave class in America, which is exactly what is on their agenda. What the left would be wise to do is educate those who are here illegally, particularly those from south of the border, to turn their own government around and stop bringing our society to a level of fiefdom with the creation of lords and serfs such as that experienced in tenth-century Europe.

I am disappointed that Barbara Ehrenreich would propose such a premise in support of the hiring of illegal immigrants, particularly when she experienced the greed and prejudice of the hiring of illegal immigrants and documented it in her book. Shame on you. Educate and send back the illegal people in our country, please don't ruin my country with claims of xenophobia.

Roy L. Payne

San Jose, CA

A completely emotional article brimming with wholly obvious abhorrent reverse racism.

The statistics used in the article are incredibly false and deliberately chosen (solely from the ACLU) to mislead the average reader.

We owe illegals nothing but the opportunity to gain lawful entry into the United States.

Barbara Ehrenreich, a Soros devotee, evidently lives in the twisted and foggy reality Soros and his Open Borders school of thought have created for the hobbled minds.

She's written thirteen books and I've never heard of her. I should be passing on this article as completely irrelevant. However, given her very dangerous and publicized stance on this position, it was incumbent upon me to comment.

Clementine Turnipseed

Long Beach, CA

You know, as a young US citizen, I did such work just to survive and even when employed and now in retirement, I've never been able to afford any illegal aliens to do my homework. And I won't countenance the diminution of my US citizenship by outlaw invading hordes, period! I don't want punishment, I just want illegal aliens sent home. (Dishonest progressive frames like migrants, undocumented immigrants, and "our" undocumented workers are doublespeak as despicable as that of the miserepublicans for the consequences of the Bush wars)!

Victor Bruce Anderson

Eagle Lake, FL

WASHINGTON, June 11, 2007 – A senior defense official expressed hope today that a provision in the stalled immigration bill that would have allowed some undocumented aliens to join the military won’t fall off the radar screen. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, provision in the immigration bill was expected to help boost military recruiting, Bill Carr, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, said today during a telephone conference with veterans’ group representatives.

The DREAM provision offered a way for high-achieving children of undocumented or illegal residents to join the military and, ultimately, become citizens, Carr explained.

And that is one of the main reasons GW Bush is pushing hard to get the illegals declared "legal." So the US Military will have an unlimited supply of warm bodies for our never ending Imperial wars for the expansion of Empire.

An added benefit is that the draft will not have to be re- instituted.

Come on now, we can't have kids with names like "Chip", "Muffy" or even "Jenna" being subject to the draft and maybe actually getting sent off to a foreign country to fight "insurgents."

We must protect the privileged in this country by letting the illegals become legal, thereby insuring endless cannon fodder for the Long War.

Greg Bacon

Ava, MO

Barbara Ehrenreich's piece is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise fetid miasma of an anti-brown folk swamp, exemplified by this collection of appalling responses. Not one fact is cited to contradict her thesis--no, just the overheated rhetoric endorsing the intensification of the maintenance of a second-class Jim Crow kind of status for certain of our fellow human beings, much of said rhetoric I can hear from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Lou Dobbs any day of the week--a rhetoric devoid of any of the humanitarian compassion and solidarity to workers of all hues and national origins supposedly associated with any politics calling itself "liberal" or "progressive."

And these writers apparently miss completely the illogic of their stance; for, in seeking to maintain and intensify the persecution of a certain segment of their fellow human beings, they only perpetuate the system that enforces, with the full backing of an armed nation state, the conditions of these huddled masses' super exploitation in this country and in theirs. Where is the outrage over the conditions these people--and they are people--flee, conditions in no small part due to the machinations of the overseers of El Norte's economy?

And what would happen if these attitudes were further enshrined into law? Would wages suddenly, overnight, miraculously rise? Would employers in this benighted land of ours see the light and generously make of the workplace a heaven on earth? Would a single-payer health care system magically appear from the lobbyist-stained halls of congress? Hardly. Outsourcing would become an even greater imperative to our Lords of Capital, and the evisceration of labor laws, environmental and workplace regulations, and the already tattered and frayed remains of the social safety net would proceed apace, though with a viciously greater and meaner vigor, leaving us to fight each other over the meager scraps the resulting slum of an economic order would dump in the dankest alleyways.

In conclusion, I summon the spirit of a fellow Hoosier, one Eugene Victor Debs. Anyone wanting to be worthy of wearing the mantle of progressive thought would do well to keep the following words in mind, from a former age where the rage was to keep the "yellow hordes" at bay:

Away with the "tactics" which require the exclusion of the oppressed and suffering slaves who seek these shores with the hope of bettering their wretched condition and are driven back under the cruel lash of expediency by those who call themselves Socialists in the name of a movement whose proud boast it is that it stands uncompromisingly for the oppressed and downtrodden of all the earth.

You all should be mighty ashamed of yourselves.

John G. Warne

Indianapolis, IN

I am a hard-core liberal, but I'm not accepting Rush Limbaugh's assertion nor Ehrenreich's that I am, therefore, obliged to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. Ms. Ehrenreich indulges in a bizarre form of racism in assuming that all of us opposed to illegal immigration are spending our time in health spas while our children attend "elite" nursery schools. I'm beginning to understand why some so-called "progressives have such a hard time empathizing with working class Liberals who oppose open borders. They can only conclude that, since we are so ungrateful that illegals are doing all our dirty work like changing our babies' diapers, we must just be racists and xenophobes. She says, "The punitive rage directed at illegal immigrants grows out of a larger blindness to the manual labor that makes our lives possible."

No, Ms. Ehrenreich, we see all too clearly the manual labor that we once did paying less and less and becoming harder to find, making our lives less possible. There are no "jobs Americans won't do." I myself, over the years, have strung tobacco and done other farm work, have been a paper boy, bag boy, stock boy, brick yard worker (that was the worst), construction worker, bell hop, dishwasher, truck driver, security guard and factory corn husker. When I finally worked my way through school and found my first really good job in the computer industry I lost it within a few years to Russian H1B workers who barely spoke English. They, by the way, were very nice guys, taking advantage of the American system to better their lot. Who could blame them?

One of them managed to explain to me that for the first three years he was not even allowed to look for a different job, lest he be sent back to a land of high crime and very low wages. It's a safe bet none of them were going to start a union or demand better working conditions. When I and most native born Americans were discharged from the local site there were left only a handful of workers who spoke English, and most of them were Canadian. The computer industry bulletin boards were swamped at that time with people with computer engineering degrees who couldn't find work during the golden age of the burgeoning new computer industry, looking for leads on any kind of computer job. They'd all been displaced by H1B workers brought in to do work the bosses "just couldn't find enough technically skilled workers to fill." Sound familiar?

Of course, not all such jobs went to "guest workers;" some were off-shored. Finally, in desperation, and rather late in life, I have returned to school to get a nursing degree. Now I hear they are pushing to raise the H1B quotas of nurses.

I'm no bigot or xenophobe. I've dated women of every race (depending, of course, on which theory of the number of races you subscribe to), and came within minutes of marrying an Argentinian girl; I have four years of college Spanish. One of my housemates in college was from Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, a country whose people need our jobs even worse than Hispanics do. Haitian refugees trying to make their way by boat to the US to find a better life don't fare so well; just last month about 80 perished. If immigration was managed more fairly perhaps some Haitians could cross over safely to our shores to take some of those plentiful jobs Americans don't want. Or maybe we could provide a refuge for some even more desperate Darfurian refugees. Or, perhaps, for the 4,000,000 displaced Iraqis. There are those who might say that what we owe Iraqi refugees is considerably greater than what we owe Ms. Ehrenreich's nanny.

I can't prove I'm not a racist, and it really doesn't affect whether or not my concerns are valid. Even if the influx of illegal aliens provides fodder for skinheads to capitalize on in recruiting, as it seems to be doing, that doesn't change the facts. Neo-Nazis may also believe the earth revolves around the sun. Actually, I've stayed up way too late writing this; as it happens I'm to join a counter-demonstration against a Klan rally in downtown Knoxville tomorrow.

I'll close with this: Illegal immigrants are not sneaking into our country to do our chores for us like the shoemaker's elves in the fairy tale; they're sneaking in to steal our jobs. But I don't blame the immigrants themselves so much; I blame the traitors who unbar the gates for them in order to enrich themselves. It's true: illegal employers exploit, underpay and maim illegal workers. Isn't that a bad thing?

John Mayer

Knoxville, TN

I have subscribed to The Nation for over 15 years and would put my progressive credentials up against anyone's, but illegal immigration simply must be stopped. How can we have universal healthcare in this country if we can't control the amount of people streaming in here? Punishing employers and pressuring the Mexican government to do something about corruption are immediate and necessary things that have to be done. I admire and respect Ms Ehrenreich and her formidible body of work, but she is off on this one. The rule of law has got to mean something.

James Bozian

Los Angeles, CA

The issue is not that illegals do jobs, it is that they work for wages Americans won't accept and that they are illegal. The horrible conundrum for progressives is that the open borders and a social safety net are incompatible policy goals. You cannot have both over any reasonable period of time.

The hidden issue that progressives seem not unable to face is the racism inherent in the present situation. This implicit racism prohibits illegals from Haiti, Latvia, Africa, Vietnam, China and so on, in favor of illegals from Mexico. If we are to truly accept all who want to come here, why are we keeping out everyone except Mexicans?

What makes the present situation so difficult to resolve is that both parties are split on it. Democrats want to protect labor but also want to let in future Democratic voters. Rebublicans want to prevent future Democratic voters, play to their citizen base, but also play to their agribusiness and corporate supporters who want cheap non-union labor.

Richard Rumelt

Los Angeles, CA

No one has mentioned why Bush suddenly wants to change immigration laws to allow Mexican and other low-wage workers into the country. Are Americans unfamiliar with the machinations of the Security and Prosperity Partnership in which the "Three Amigos"--Canada, the US and Mexico--maximize the resources of each country for the benefit of an economic elite meeting in secret to harmonize policy and regulations amongst the three, free of democratic process? Resources from Canada, cheap labor from Mexico and from the US--the military. Harmonized. A pretty little ditty indeed.

Jo Hayward-Haines
Council of Canadians

Ennismore, Ontario, Canada

This article has to be among the worst I've ever read in The Nation. It's short on facts and long on emotion, and I can't believe the author belittles the crime of illegal immigration while ignoring the economic and social burdens caused by illegal immigrants on the country. I am a flaming liberal, but I am not for amnesty, much less giving illegal immigrants bonuses, as the author suggested. I couldn't imagine what would happen to me if I decided to sneak into France without a visa, get a job without papers, and then demand citizenship. How quickly would I be in jail and then on the next flight to JFK?

I also have to admit that I'm a little concerned that the current drives for amnesty favor immigrants from South America and Mexico. What about all people in Africa who due to proximity aren't able to sneak across a border? Don't they deserve a chance to work in this country, even if only as a temporary worker? I don't want to see one race/nationality being overly represented in the immigration bill.

Liane Carter

San Francisco, CA

This is one of the most outrageous articles I have come across!

"Undocumented immigrants annually pay an estimated $7 billion more than they take out into Social Security, and $1.5 billion more into Medicare.... A study by the National Academy of Sciences also found that tax payments generated by immigrants outweighed any costs associated with services used by immigrants." Baloney !

Really?! Explain to me then, if they are "undocumented," how are they paying taxes? (Secretly??) And if they are paying taxes, paying into SS, M'Care etc., how come the Feds can't identify them?

How come all the Haitians are send back when they try to get in illegally ?

These i-l-l-e-g-a-l aliens have broken the law and you know it. You are no better than the employers who hire them cheap and exploit them, i-l-l-e-g-a-l-l-y !!!!!!!

This stupid and conniving Adminstration and some lawmakers have learnt nothing from the lessons of 1986.

Paul Amigo

Pennington Gap, VA

I have to say, nothing has so unified people from all across the political spectrum as has this issue. I'm a former Democrat, now vote (mostly) Republican, and every letter I've read in regards to Ms. Ehrenrich's ridiculous essay I almost wholeheartedly agree with. I've never seen liberals and conservatives united like this. Who knew that the readers of The Nation and National Review would agree on anything? For the record, most conservatives are angered by the rewarding of law-breaking, depressed wages, crime and gang activity, and unassmilated immigrants, much like most liberals are. I'm as angry at Bush as I am at Kennedy (and that, my friends, is saying something!). Nor am I alone. Liberal and conservative America are together on this. And that warms my cold, evil, Republican heart.

Joel Natzke

Kansas City, MO

I live in the great San Joaquin Valley in California. I have lived here my whole life and in fact my family has been here for many generations. The problem with illegal immigration and amnesty is that there is no end in sight. Remember the amnesty of the eighties that was supposed to solve everything. Bull----, all it did was help to erode the middle class. Specifically talking about construction, roofing, cement work, lawn work and factory work. The politicians try to say that it is for the family farmer. I say what family farmer? The rich people getting their government checks for not growing anything? There are hardly any family farmers left. So quit being in favor of subsidizing people like professional ballplayers or corporate executives who invest in land just so they can reap the benefits of the farm subsidy. End all farm subsidies. Balance the budget before we spend money on things like subsidies or aid to foreign countries. We, as taxpayers, need to realize that our elected leaders sold us down the road along time ago, and all they are interested in is the status quo. Just so they get their pension and their great medical care for life, they really do not care about the rest of us. They just choose issues like immigration, religion, abortion, to divide us.

Judy Keel

Fresno, CA

My credentials are solidly progressive. Since baby Bush was elected, I have longed for and looked forward to the day when he will be replaced by a forward-looking, intelligent progressive. Barbara Ehrenreich would have us believe that all progressives agree with her convoluted ideas on illegal immigration. The problem is that Barbara, like so many so-called progressives is, in reality, an elitist.

I raised two sons without a nanny. Those two sons cut the grass, I tended to the garden, cooked all the meals, and worked at a low-paying job I can ill afford to leave even tho I am past retirement age because I need my meager pay and health benefits.

Most, if not all, of the previous writers expressed so eloquently many of my reservations about this so-called immigration bill. None of them were immigrant-haters, and all seemed to be seeking a path to a more forward-looking approach to our nation's economic problems. It is sad to see our Democratic members of Congress jumping on the Bush bandwagon. I recall when the Democrats, under President Clinton, voted against their better instincts to support NAFTA. They were rewarded for their votes by losing control of Congress during the next election. Ehrenreich believes that those opposed to this immigration bill are anti-immigrant. She totally overlooks the legal, non-Mexican immigrants who have skills in nursing and the building trades who are suffering because they have learned English, have good work credentials, but are losing out due to the outsourcing of jobs that the lower paid illegals cannot perform. Unions have become almost nonexistent, and the threat of a strike is hollow if workers can be replaced by cheap, illegal immigrants.

We will have another pro-big business Republican President and Congres if the Democrats continue to support this terrible, terrible bill.

Ehrenreich lives in an elitist dream world, as do many of the presidential candidates. Those opposed to this bill are not just the Rush Limbaughs and xenophobes. Decent, thoughtful senators such as Byron Dorgan should lead in crafting better legislation.

Nan Vhelms

Arlington Heights, IL

I started out to excoriate Ms. Ehrenreich over her deceptive article. However, I find a fair number of writers beat me to it. I am proud of my fellow Americans for seeing so clearly the fallacy of immigrants doing jobs Americans supposedly won't do. Especially my fellow union members, like the IBEW of Detroit.

Ms. Ehrenreich says they are "breaking in" to clean and work, not to commit crimes. I say they are breaking in to steal. They are stealing the chance at the American dream from millions of Americans. For black Americans the unemployment rate appears to be stuck at twice the rate for whites. For Hispanic Americans it's about 50 percent higher than for non-hispanic whites.

Millions of American citizens want that chance at the American dream, the chance Ms Ehrenreich has already benefited from. They should not be denied the chance because of deceptive writings by those already on the top.

Robert W. Klahn
USWA Local 8316 Whitehouse Ohio.

Sylvania, OH

Barbara Ehrenreich's article was in a perverse way very useful. With her writing skills and misguided "facts," she has condensed into one article most of the arguments made by the defenders of these invaders of our borders. Barbara, thanks for the target!

Like, I would imagine, most of the other bloggers on this issue, I am moderate to liberal on most social/political issues... but when it comes to the integrity of our borders I have been driven by drivel such as hers into the downright Republican camp. If a nation cannot defend its own borders, is it in fact a sovereign nation? Allowing uncontrolled and unrestrained immigration is akin to allowing the counterfeiting of our currency. Would the author argue that because some people don't have enough money, we have a moral obligation to allow them to create their own at our expense?

Our immigration policy, like many other policies, may need some reworking--even though it is already more generous than many other countries. But the solution is to lobby to change it, not to declare it unenforceable. In the meantime, please stop the doublespeak; breakers of the law are "illegal" by definition, like it or not. War is not peace, good is not bad, and illegal is not undocumented.

David Josephsohn

Greensboro, NC

What America owes its "illegals"? Nothing. They come here to work. They make better money here than they make in their home countries.

What would they be doing if they weren't here? Working in their own country, doing the same kind of jobs, or worse for a lot less money, or they wouldn't be working at all.

More to the point, what would Americans be doing if we didn't have a glut of illegals taking jobs that used to be done by our own teenagers and other people who needed entry-level work? We would probably have fewer overweight teenagers sitting home playing Nintendo. The unemployment rate for teenagers in this country is in the high teens.

Our college students used to be able to make money for school by filling construction and restaurant jobs during the summer. Those jobs are no longer available.

So that old gate swings both ways. For every argument for illegal immigration there is another arguement for controlling it.

Ida Garza

Loveland, CO

"if they break in for the purpose of cleaning it--scrubbing the bathroom, mowing the lawn--then, in my way of thinking anyway, the debt goes in the other direction."

Great, would you mind posting your home address. Me and a few friends would like to break into your house to do your dishes, mow your lawn, and perform some minor construction, like deck or roof repair.

In exchange, you can pay us all a livable wage, give us and our families full health benefits, pay to put our kids through school, supply us with room and board, and provide us with retirement benefits.

Thanks for your offer!!

James Nelson

Olathe, KS

This is what is so interesting about your article:

"In case you don't know what immigrants do in this country, the Latinos have a word for it--trabajo. They've been mowing the lawns, cleaning the offices, hammering the nails and picking the tomatoes, not to mention all that dish-washing, diaper-changing, meat-packing and poultry-plucking."

The black people, the original "illegals," also had a name for this work: We called it "work." But since "work" is in English, I guess it's just not as sexy-hot. How quickly you forget that the people who used to do this work for you--and still continue to do this work in places not deluged with illegals--are overwhelmingly black. Why is it you owe the Latinos more for this work than you owe the blacks who did this work for more than 400 hundred years? And you want to call it "trabajo?" How about, "Just another day in white supremacy?" How about, "Nigger make your own help" work?

If it is acceptable to imprison 1 out of 3 black people--ten years for consensual teen sex, for instance--why should black people lobby for greater reward for the people who replace us? Latinos get to live in a free country. Black people do not. Two Americas? I see at least three or four.

What do you owe the people who have supported and sacrificed for white privilege all these centuries? Apparently, not a damn thing besides space at the penitentiary. If nothing is good enough for the blacks, why isn't it good enough for the Latinos? My brother has done more than three years in prison for possession of his own particular poison. Why should I cry because someone breaking and entering my country has to sit up in a brand new facility to be shipped home. Thanks to my fellow American, I don't have a homeland anymore. Thanks to American foreign policy, I never will.

What a slap in the face. Do you still need black people for anything, now that you have a new servant class? I hope not. My brothers are right now being radicalized by Islam. Our loss will be someone's gain.

Since authors of The Nation cannot even remember the billions of Africans who died for your country in servitude, this is my last time reading this blog. Some Nation this turned out to be. But I am glad to see that the liberal intellectual class has already pardoned itself for one slavery, and can now ethically consider another. As my grandmother explained, the White Man loves him some slavery... still.

K. Taylor

Houston, TX

Barbara Ehrenreich's article promoting amnesty for illegal aliens exemplifies the disingenuous arguments used by the few pro-amnesty supporters left in this country (the few that are legally here at least). The slight of hand she used to conflate illegal immigrants with legal immigrants so that she could use "facts" from reputable researchers to seemingly justify her thesis destroys what little credibility she had left with me. It’s offensive to those legal immigrants in this country as well. Proving her willingness to use these lies to try and gain support for her illogical position means she is intellectually connected with our President on at least two levels now. He lies to manipulate people and he is one of the few people who agree with her stance on illegal immigration as well. Congratulations, Barbara. You choose great company. Maybe he'll invite you to sit next to him at the signing of the amnesty bill he promises us (who is looking for this promise is unclear still) is still on track. You two can also discuss your proclivity toward using Machiavellian propaganda techniques to sway us "rabble" out here to "do what’s right for us" while you drink some more neo-con Kool-aid and laugh at the “little people” out here trying to make a living doing the work no one is supposed to want to do.

I am offended by your implication that I am a bigot because I don't want to encourage illegal immigrants to cross our border with Mexico through amnesty. The Nation's readers deserve an apology from Barbara for her brutish insinuations and disingenuous use of research.

By the way, Barbara, I have a housekeeper who has been cleaning our house every other week for about a year now (first housekeeper I've ever had) and a couple guys who mow my yard regularly and all of them are natural-born Americans. I know you frown on them for being willing to work in such lowly occupations, but I find them to be nice, honest, hard working people who are very willing to do the work you claim only illegal immigrants will do in order to pay their bills and eat regularly. How dare they? What do you have to say to these people who are being pushed out of their occupations by people who entered the country illegally? And what do you say to all the middle-class and lower workers in this country who continue to see their wages bottom out because of an abundance of illegal labor? You should be ashamed of yourself, Barbara!

You say Americans won’t do labor work and Bill Gates says there aren’t enough Americans to do skilled labor either (despite the fact that wages in computer engineering keep going down). So what jobs will Americans do in the future you envision, Barbara?

Jack Young

Carbondale, IL

What America Owes its 'Illegals'? Nothing.

I have just read fifteen letters from my fellow liberals on this site. I feel much better. For a while, I though I was the only liberal who believes that we don't owe these illegal aliens anything, and that we should enforce the labor laws and go after the companies who hire them.

The mainstream media would have us believe that liberals are all of one mind about this, but clearly, as so often is the case, the elites (that's you Barbara) are out of step with the average liberal working American.

Jason Kennedy

New York, NY

A good article, although I must raise a few points:

First, America does not "owe" anything to illegal immigrants just because they come and do work in the US that, frankly, some of the already existing people here won't get up off their backsides and do.

Second, the notion that the "breaking and entering" is OK just because its not followed up by something worse is ludicrous. If the author believes this, then I guess she leaves her doors & windows open every night. She is creating an excuse for the action.

Third, and probably most important, the public doesn't have as much of a problem with Illegals or Immigrants in general as the author would have us believe, as many realize that its not them but the lack of effort of our Administrators to get them to assimilate that is the real problem. We are all immigrants. We are all Americans too. But the multiculturalist fanatics are bent on turning the nation from a Melting Pot into a Salad Bowl. I'd feel much better about honoring and promoting the time-honored tradition of admitting those seeking a better life if I didn't have to worry about our own leadership using them to destroy to national identity of this nation

Chip Thornton

Reisterstown, MD

Ms. Ehrenreich's got cojones: I'll give her that. To spit into the wind of such widespread, virulent opposition to this bill takes guts, at least the kind of "guts" that emanate from a high-profile liberal writer's keyboard. For the record, I am a social moderate, even progressive on some issues, but the point of view expressed by Ms. Ehrenreich not only misses the train, but can't even find the terminal.

The bill both attempts to whitewash the darker aspects of illegal immigration in this country--selling out the basic rights and privileges of native or legally naturalized American citizenship, in favor of the strategic swelling of Democratic Party ranks with the beneficiaries of this bill's largesse--but also pinches a collective nerve of deeper, equally intractable feelings of high anxiety and even paranoia among many if not most American citizens about the dangerous, toxic, shrink-wrapped world they're living in.

Mixed in with a wide swath of bigotry toward poor Spanish-speaking interlopers, many of us are festering over the siege of our country by swarms of illegals, hidden jihadist cells, obdurately weak "homeland" security six years after 9/11, epidemic autism in newborns, a broken health care system, 100 different designer drug commercials on TV, the loss of middle-class wages, seemingly endless pre-emptive war, the rising mountain of dead and tragically maimed American troops, a paralyzed, ineffectual Congress, a despised, impotent President...what else you got?

This bill seems to have coalesced all these roiling, shared emotions into a hardened attitude best expressed by the rallying cry of the late, great Peter Finch in his iconic 1976 portrayal of the network anchorman burnout cum prophet Howard Beal, in the movie "Network": "I'm Mad As Hell And I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore!"

As Freud famously suggested in his interpretation of dreams, "Sometimes, a cigar is really just a cigar." Bigotry always plays a role in the American stigmatization of some minority group, but in the case of 12 million illegals and growing, there are other more thoughtful objections at work in this controversy. It is tapping into the zeitgeist: what does it mean to be "American" in an era when that identity is increasingly diluted at home by sweeping demographic changes, and spat upon by so many of the world's Second and Third World nations due to our efforts at regional predomination in the Middle East and elsewhere?

For Ms. Ehrenreich to ignore these wrenching concerns in favor of an essay "thanking" illegals for all their "hard work" is simply pure cannon fodder for the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, allowing them and others to grind liberal "bleeding hearts" into pundit dust, alongside the bill's GOP proponents seeking to put some whipped cream on the manure of cheap labor benefits achieved through "globalization." Not helping, Barbara, only hurting.

Stewart Braunstein

Port Washington , NY

Mass migration, as everybody ought to know, is the unavoidable effect of the NAFTA regime, which increased the mobility of capital across national borders and decreased its accountability to anyone. People who have been economically displaced by NAFTA have not been deterred by our present immigration policy, which has been to make legal immigration difficult through sheer bureaucratic slowness. This has merely made more immigrants illegal. But how quick we are to blame the illegals and to spare the bureaucracy! The willingness of many to blame the victims of our neglect of the economic consequences of NAFTA is appalling. Owen Pool's letter is typical: "I do see them [illegal immigrants] suppressing wages of our citizens by unfairly and illegally taking jobs at lower than prevailing wages." Apparently, nobody is responsible for paying illegal immigrants these lamentable wages--the workers themselves are responsible for taking them. And if the wages are paid under the table to avoid payroll taxes, then it is the workers, not the employers, who are responsible for the tax shortfall. Such moral blindness--which to my mind is hard to explain without reference to crude racism--is why our present policy is to tear apart migrant families and to pour money into an armed border that will continue to leak, while the legal and economic causes of mass migration are ignored and its prime beneficiaries--exploitive bosses--seldom get so much as a slap on the wrist.

Eric Paul Jacobsen

Saint Paul, MN

No one agrees with the author? What a suprise! I keep hearing about American citizens weeping for the poor "undocumented"--wanting only for them to "come out of the shadows and into the sunshine"..."dignity and respect"... They're not appearing here. Could it just be a figment of political imagination? Ya think?

Trip down memory lane with me to 1985/1986 and the Senate wrangle over Simpson-Mazzoli--National Review, 10/18/1985, by John McLaughlin:

In the House, Peter Rodino (D., N.J.) and Romano Mazzoli (D., Ky.) have co-sponsored their own immigration bill, which differs marginally from the Simpson model. The Senate bill calls for higher civil penalties (employer sanctions) than its House counterpart, and its amnesty provision is stricter: Amnesty would be granted on condition that a commission, appointed by the President, certifies that employer sanctions and enhanced border enforcement have in fact curtailed illegal entry. In any case, amnesty cannot be delayed for longer than three years. The House amnesty, which takes effect upon the bill's passage, applies to illegals living in the U.S. prior to January 1982, whereas the Senate version requires aliens seeking amnesty to have lived here before January 1, 1980. Anti-amnesty sentiment, by the way, is growing among legislators. Many now share the view of Glenn English (D., Okla.), who says that he would not vote "for any bill" containing an amnesty provision.

Sound familiar? Further in the article:

Why nothing has been done to get control of the illegal-immigration nightmare in this country remains a mystery. World population now stands at 4.8 billion, and it is expected to bloat to 6.1 billion in 15 years. Widespread famine and depressed economies have exerted prodigious immigration pressures on the United States. "This country accepts 1 per cent of the developing world's annual population growth as legal immigrants every year," says Carl Hampe, a demographer at the Population reference Bureau in Washington, D.C.

The names have changed, but the script is almost word-for-word.

C'mon people, we're all being played by the globalists. So many are selling out. We've placed our fate and faith in the hands of highly motivated psychotic personalities. Where are the wise? Where are the honorable? Where are our leaders?

The storm's about to rage.

Lawrence E. Krause

San Jose, CA

Don't you just hate it when an author lies? No one I have heard on the radio, including Rush, has said a word against immigrants. Few of us in the country would be here if it weren't for immigrants. The outrage is about illegal aliens, criminals who have invaded our country with impunity so far despite laws dating back even before the 1986 Amnesty package, laws that Mr. Bush has ordered Mr. Gonzales not to enforce. Selective enforcement of laws is criminal. Therefore, Mr. Bush is a criminal, just as much a criminal as the corporations that hire illegal aliens. And those who support Mr. Bush and his S.1348 giant corporate welfare program, which does include amnesty as a sop for the weak-minded, are just as guilty as he is for failing to insist current laws be enforced.

It does little good for Congress to pass, and the President to sign into law, measures that are ignored. For example, where is our fence? Before anything else, enforce current laws.

P.S. The photo as part of the header for this article clearly shows an E. coli spreading environment.

Doc Hilliard

Big Bear, CA

Where is John Galt when you need him? What does America owe its "illegals"? First subtract the $2.6 trillion it will cost the people of the mind that are going to have to pay for them. I tend to trust the Heritage Foundations analysis over the lies from the San Diego ACLU. Do your homework.

P.S. Can't wait until the ACLU gets defunded on RICO charges. I hear it's in the wind.

Arthur Leritz, M.D.

Nordman, ID

I am appalled when anyone tries to justify blatantly illegal actions. What about crime, gangs, and drugs, and possible terrorists flooding into America as well. I lose sleep each night in fear of nightime break-in, something I would never have been concerned about twenty years ago. Fine the heck out of all people who employ illegals and when no jobs and no money are readily available, they will self-deport themselves. All American cities are way overcrowded. Not only am I against illegal immigrants, I think a ten-year moratorium on all Immigration into this country would be a great stabilizer and 'calmer-downer' for this aggressively assaulted society. Most impressive of all are the 12 writers who posted before me all of whom exhibited incredible knowledge, wisdom, and communication skills. I have never before seen such a fine grouping of opinion letters and I mainly wrote this to commend each and every one of you.

Larry Kevin Roberts

Cathedral City, CA

We are not a socialist country, except for education and various other shades of medical help, etc. I think we should have socialized medicine, but capitalism is explicitly unfair, especially to those who do not have an education. I think it is fairly accurate to say that many Mexicans have more children than they can afford, with no birth control. They seem to be steeped in Catholicism. Their country is very screwed up, and someone needs to work toward straightening it out, but running out of it illegally across our border as a remedy is just wrong. What if Canadians were doing it, also? There is a limit to this behavior. I do not know the statistics and I don't trust most of those I hear, anyway, but 12-20 million people who are squatting on our land illegally doesn't sound right to me. Who is profiting? The usual--business owners who enjoy paying wages as low as possible. A big clue is that our president wants this bill passed. I do not buy your argument that all those jobs would not get done. Who worked those jobs before the Mexicans came in droves? Many people in the US might unionize and get better wages and better treatment if Mexicans were not flooding the labor market, in my opinion, and over the years, the market has been altered to fit the conditions created by the illegal workers. This is not improving Mexico or the US, and calling it right and legal is not going to change that.

Wallace Howey

Oklahoma City, OK

What bothers me most about this whole issue is that neither side seems to think about what to me is one of the most important factors: the effect of illegal workers on our working-class countrymen. It's like everybody expects the Americans who used to work in physical labor industries for a living wage will now be freed up to move on to careers as computer engineers, nuclear physicists, lawyers and college professors. I guess the assumption is that, having seen their wages undermined by millions of illegal aliens who will work for less, the Americans will demonstrate good old American ingenuity and live off the royalties after inventing fusion energy, perpetual motion machines and other soon-to-be wonders of the modern age.

And what happens to the folks who are illegal now but will be legal after "comprehensive immigration reform"? After they get their Z visas they will be able to "come out of the shadows" and demand a higher wage. Only problem is there will be millions more undocumented workers flooding into the now vacated shadows who will be willing to work for less. I'm no brain surgeon myself, but given the experience of having seen an amnesty of 3-4 million undocumented workers in 1986 draw in another 12-20 million over twenty years, I think it might be time to pause and ask whether amnesty in 1986 worked as intended before we embark on another one. I don't want to live in a country--like Mexico--where there is an unbridgeable gap between rich and poor and you pretty much are doomed to the class you were born in. But I guess that makes me anti-immigrant.

Robert A. White

San Diego, CA

I disagree with most of the author's claims. The first is that the illegal immigrants primarily do work "we" don't want to do. Wrong. There is nothing in the corporate-sponsored bill that is restricted to bringing workers in to do agricultural labor. To the contrary, the 800,000 "guest" workers will be doctors, engineers, soon will be lawyers, CPAs, maybe teachers. Why did Bill Gates hire Ralph Reed, Abramoff's bff, to lobby (bribe) Congress to change the law to allow more workers to be brought into the US every year? Quite simply, corporate greed. They can hire professionals from other countries for a fraction of what they would pay an American. And those same civic and corporate leaders complain that the US does not do enough in educating people in science, math, and engineering. Why would young people go into those fields when the jobs are all being given to Third World imports?

The bottom line is this: Congress wants to "solve" the massive illegal immigration into the US by redefining the problem: the 12 million are no longer "illegal"--now they are "legal." End of problem. Let's bring in millions more.

If we're going to redefine status from illegal to legal, since the poor people have such a tough situation, why not start with Americans? Where is the empathy for all the poor (often black) Americans who are thrown in prison because they bought, sold, possessed, used drugs? Why not "redefine" them from illegal to legal, clean out the prisons, give a break to some Americans, and let Mexico worry about the Mexicans.

The bottom line is simple: Construction work in California 30 years ago paid $18-$25/hour; it was considered a very desirable field, one which women were trying to get into, because you could earn a decent living. Today most of the construction is done by illegal immigrants at $8/hour. The myth that "we" are helped by cheap labor is clearly shown by housing costs in California. The savings on labor are not passed on to consumers. Instead, the developer makes more money, the real estate agent makes more money, the banks make more money because they make bigger loans, and consumers now must pay minimum 10 times gross to buy an older tract home, when 45 years ago a nice new tract home cost 3 times gross (average income earner).

It should be illegal to hire people who do not have papers. We should not have "guest" worker programs without a showing that there is a shortage of people in that field in the US. The immigration debate is premised on lies and deception, and will only serve to further drive down the working conditions of US men and women.

In the past 40 years we have lost job security; wages have frozen or retreated; holidays and vacation days have been cut; sick leave is often eliminated; medical insurance is only partly reimbursed, if that; and our pensions have been eliminated and instead are used to fund the multimillion-dollar yearly looting of businesses by the corporate insiders.

The intentional acts by Bush to cut the border patrol and invite illegal immigrants into the US is part of the plan to further degrade working people in the US. This is not an anti-Mexican perspective. It's just that someone needs to be on the side of working men and women in the US. Any politician in the US who wants to pass laws to benefit the people of Mexico should move to Mexico and run for office down there. For now, any US politician has one job only: acting on behalf of the citizens of the US. It is in the best interests of working men and women to have a shortage of labor and a limited supply, since that increases wages, working conditions and improves the bargaining position of working people.

Nancy A. Butterfield

Camarillo, CA

I agree completely with what the previous three letter writers wrote. What about the people who are patiently waiting their turn to come into this country legally? Those are the people, whomever they are, that we should seek to protect. Since when we do we protect illegals who think nothing about breaking the law over the people who want to do the right thing? We want people who abide by the law, not the ones who break it whenever it suits them. Can't you see that this is Bush's way to get cheap labor for big corporations? MSNBC reported a business was raided today. Only 48 out of 400 employees were legal! The illegals had stolen US citizens' social security numbers. Enough is enough.

Mary Whitehurst

Largo, FL

I'm generally an admirer of Barbara Ehrenreich, but I couldn't disagree more with her--and a good many other of my fellow liberals--on this issue. Every sovereign nation has the right to control the influx of people who would live within its borders. I am ashamed the US government sees fit to bow ceaselessly to the disingenuous demands of big (and not-so-big) business, which warns of economic catastrophe if any effort is made to curb this country's downward spiral of wages. Illegal immigrants--emphasis on the modifier, Babs, without the ironic quote marks--are a problem for a rapidly diminishing middle class (which, by the way, includes millions of legal immigrants) because illegals' willingness to endure a kind of indentured servitude only increases the downward pressure on wages. It's time true liberals as well as the Democratic Party stood up for America's middle class for a change and stopped slathering over identity-group politics.

Joe Boris

Arlington, VA

I disagree with the author. The principal beneficiaries of allowing the illegals to stay in this country are the big-money employers who are able to keep wages low, thereby keeping many of our citizens unemployed or underemployed. I think that many of my fellow liberals are missing the point here. We do need to enforce the law to allow only qualified people to immigrate here and to be able to properly regulate the true minimum wage law.

The corporate folks who really set policy in this country have had a pass for too long. It is time to start really enforcing the law by imposing stiff fines on the employers who are breaking the law by hiring these illegals. No, we do not need a fence around our country. If the law were enforced we would find that the severely fined (or imprisoned) employers would stop hiring the illegals, thereby removing the incentive for the illegal border crossings.

Jim Thomas

Edmond, OK

America does not owe the illegal aliens one thing.

As is usual with many who write articles stating how bad we treat illegals seem to forget that the folks that are causing the problems are not just Illegals, they are illegal aliens.

The stagnation of salaries and and the lowering of living standards of real American citizens has been brought about by the low wages that companies, cooperations and farmers can pay these illegal aliens, if in fact they do pay them.

This author's statements concerning the cost these illegal aliens impose upon US citizens are without doubt one of the most untrue statements written lately.

She certainly has not presented the real facts concerning the funds that are used on illegal aliens, therefore our citizens who need care and help are denied them due to these costs.

We need to pay living wages to our own citizens so they can live a decent life instead of channeling more to the companies and such by allowing them to hire illegal aliens and paying them low wages. The standard of living is dropping for many of our citizens but people like Barbara Ehrenreich do not seem to care, and refuse to address just what these folks are: Illegal aliens. They broke the laws of this country.

Ben Carnahan

Joplin, MO

If journalists writing columns like this have any hope of trying to inform the public about the issues regarding immigration then it's no wonder Congress can't resolve it either. With all the space available to write on the issue there are way too many facts that are left out here to consider this article a viable opinion. I really don't see the pro-immigration stance that the author thinks liberals have. Liberals are typically Democrats, Labor unions are Democrat. You walk into any labor union with a Viva La Mexico T-shirt and the membership will throw you out on your tush!! The fact that immigrants vote Democrat is another misconception about why liberals favor more immigrants. Immigrants vote Democrat because as members of the working class, they do so in their better interest. What really baffles me is all the (R)s that aren't voting for this bill, which triples the number of H1B visas and legitimizes a possible 12 million more nonskilled workers to compete in what little construction and manufacturing base we have left. With all the "right-to-work" (pro-scab labor), agricultural states in our Union and the way corporations and farmers love to exploit immigrant workers--you'd think (R) lawmakers would be all for this type of legislation. What makes this bill unpassable is that it is coauthored by the White House and the US Chamber of Commerce. But I think the real problem with this Legislation is its timing--until we get out of this illegal occupation and weasel out of the grasp of Worst Presidency Ever--no substantial legislation should be considered.

Scott A. Urbanczyk
IBEW Local 58--Detroit

Warren, MI

Like so many advocates for illegals, the author misrepresents Mr. Limbaugh's and many conservatives' position. Legal migrant workers are applauded, appreciated, and encouraged by this conservative and most that I know. The issue is illegal immigration! Why not try to report and comment accurately for a change.

Jim King
None

Lee's Summit, MO

Ms. Ehrenreich seems to be one of those Americans who is adicted to illegal aliens. It is okay to mow your own lawn and raise your own children, ma'am.

Trust me, all you employers who are adicted as well. Once they get amnesty, they will no longer have to hide. No longer will they do hard work cheap, because they will no longer fear deportation. Count on them soaking up all the social benefits of living in America, and bringing in every relative they can think of. Count on them to unionize and outnumber us, and then try to run our country, even though they have failed miserably to run their own countries.

How about we enforce existing laws, build the fence that has already been authorized and hammer employers who hire these law breakers?

Hannah Katz

Los Angeles, CA

You quote the website of the San Diego ACLU as saying that a study by the National Academy of Sciences reveals that "tax payments generated by immigrants outweighed any costs associated with services used by immigrants." But the problem is not with immigrants. The problem is with illegal immigrants. They are not the same. You people who support amnesty are always trying to trick the public with statistics about immigrants, hoping that we will not notice your efforts to conflate data about legal and illegal immigrants. But, actually, there are good studies about the costs imposed upon taxpayers by illegal immigrants. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation testified before Congress that a study of illegal immigrants revealed that they, on average, annually consumed $20,000.00 more in public services than they paid in taxes. Most illegal immigrants have less than a high-school education, and such people do not, on average, earn enough money to pay sufficient taxes to pay for the government services they receive. Nobody has refuted Rector's study. So why cite another study, which is not even germane. Why not simply tell the truth, Ms. Ehrenreich? Why the deceit?

Robert Wangeman

San Diego, CA

I disagree completely with the author. All of the things cited that the illegals are supposed to be doing for me I already do for myself. As a teacher, however, I see them coming into my schools for a free education and free food and free healthcare while not even trying to assimilate into our culture. Family values? Forget it; They have a very high rate of out-of-wedlock births, and the so-called cultural work ethic typically disappears for the children of the parents who brought them or birthed them. There is very little effort by the children to succeed in school, dropping out at high rates, and you don't see these children in their teens taking the entry level jobs sought by their legal counterparts. I do not know of a single job that the illegals do that american citizens are not doing. I do see them supressing wages of our citizens by unfairly and illegally taking jobs at lower than prevailing wages. Let's not forget the original problem: They are here illegally, coming into this country in clear violation of our laws, and should not be rewarded for this or allowed to stay.

Owen Pool

Brunswick, GA