Sadly I guess Congress is going to muck around with immigration. Not that the system shouldn't be changed, but there's no reason to trust the people running the show to do the right thing. I think sentiments like Oliver's make a lot of intuitive sense to people, but they're still basically wrong as a practical matter. A lot of illegal immigrants have been here a long time, have kids who are citizens, etc. Yes they broke the rules by coming here, and yes other people who come here legally did it the right way, but I can't get behind tearing up otherwise law-abiding families and sending people back to places where they may no longer have a home or a means of supporting themselves.
I understand what motivates people to be against amnesty programs. "Rewarding bad behavior" sounds like an unappealing thing to do. But the practical thing and the compassionate thing to do is to put large numbers of these people on the path citizenship.
Any kind of guest worker program is just awful. The creation of a permanent legal underclass will have numerous adverse consequences, even aside from the basic immorality of it.
Genuinely good immigration reform will require courageous political leadership and sensible politicians. We currently lack both.
