Now trust me, I'm Puerto Rican, Czech, Irish and English. The main issue I have about illegal immigration has nothing to do with work and taxes and crime per se. A culture is comprised of a given population that shares a significant amount of commonly agreed upon cultural traits. When someone immigrate legally into a country, the very nature of the act is declaring that they wish to adopt those same traits and perpetuate them with their offspring. When someone illegially immigrates to another area, they are escaping from another area into this one. The very nature of illegally entering another country means that they choose to ignore the first signpost in integrating into a new culture, following the law (mind you we may not follow all of our own laws as citizens but we agree to the justice system over all). They are only saying that they don't agree with their own government but not declaring that they don't agree with the culture. For example, all of the Mexican flags that were flown during the protests and entire schools in SW catering to spanish speaking cultures. When they state that they want a better life in the US, they are not saying that they want to be Americans.

As an aside, I would favor a guest worker program tied to credit towards citizenship. Only a limited form of amnesty, linked with application for a guest worker visa and ACTIVELY working towards citizenship. Illegals, those who make no effort to either bolster our businesses through legal status nor work towards citizenship or criminals should be forced to leave. With a guest worker system tied to limited amnesty, people who immigrate here can also have a voice that protects them from unscrupulous business practices.