Reply #21: you're so ignorant it hurts. Here are the little-known truths about immigration:

[Liberty Belle]

Poor people in Mexico cannot get legal immigration status. You have to own property and be wealthy. That is a fact.

So if you have no work and your family is starving, you too would risk crossing the border--even though that's now a dangerous and expensive proposition; most have to save a couple of years to earn the $2K to pay a coyote, smuggler.

So how are these people "criminals" for trying to save their families or themselves? What alternative would you leave them -- starve and die? That is not compassionate.

We need immigration reform that allows at least a quota each year of people to immigrate legally from Mexico and Central America who are NOT wealthy. This is the big untold story. If people knew they could have a reasonable chance of getting here legally if they just saved up and waited their turn, they wouldn't risk dying crossing the border (600 are buried in our local cemetery, and that's just the border crossers who died in Imperial and San Diego Counties. There are closer to 10,000 nationwide since the Border Wall construction began.) For centuries we had no wall and no such animosity toward our Mexican neighbors.

Now for why there are so many poor and desperate Mexicans now as opposed to 20 or 30 years ago or earlier? One word answer: NAFTA. NAFTA allowed the U.S. farmers to make money by selling corn and other crops cheaper in Mexico. This competed against Mexican farmers and drove them out of business. That took away the agricultural jobs that were the basis of Mexico's economy in most areas.

So the U.S. bears the blame for a large part of the immigration problem - and the hatred and immigrant bashing is fueled by rightwing corporate-run media and people like the Kochs brothers.

If instead US workers would join with Mexican immigrants in calling for the repeal of NAFTA and a human and reasonable immigration policy, with quotas much like we've had in the past to limit (but not eliminate) flow of immigration from other places (ie from European countries when everyone was fleeing the Holocaust) then we would all be better off. Mexicans would have more jobs in Mexico and a chance for a better life here if they followed the new law, and the harm done to the U.S. economy by NAFTA could begin to be undone.