> But I have a hard time feeling sympathy for people whose very *first* act in this country was illegal who then expect to be treated as though they deserve the same consideration as citizens and legal immigrants.

Frankly I'd let anyone who want it get on the "path to citizenship" without regard to quotas (I don't believe governments have the right to tell people where they can and cannot live).

Current U.S. immigration policy is not going to let a bunch of unskilled laborers who probably don't speak the language into the country. Since the vast majority of illegal immigrants are not ever going to get citizenship if they tried the legal method, I certainly don't begrudge them for breaking a bad law.

The way I see it, America is all about doing what you have to in order to make a better life for yourself. We're a nation of people who left -- or got kicked out of -- other countries. We're the nation that told the Brits to go to hell when they tried to lay direct taxes against us and we're the nation that in our expansion westward actually claimed that the fates themselves had deemed the land ours. I don't begrudge the American settlers who entered, say, Texas illegally when it was a Mexican territory (nor do I begrudge their subsequent revolution). The American spirit is all about breaking bad laws when you need to, governments be damned.

Our immigration policy sucks and when laws suck people ignore them. Rather than fixing the root of the problem (making it easier for people to gain permanent residency legally), most of the current immigration debate centers around trying to keep people out. Good luck with that.

Stephen