As I've said before, the Democrat's victory in last month's election virtually guarantees that illegal immigrants will get amnesty and functional citizenship.
Congress will approve an immigration bill that will grant citizenship rights to most of the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the U.S. after Democrats take control next month, predict both sides on Capitol Hill. ...House Republicans and many outside Congress derided that bill as "amnesty" for allowing illegals to remain in the U.S. and eventually become citizens. Democrats say it's not amnesty because aliens must pay a fine and wait years before becoming citizens. ...
With President Bush as an ally in the White House, he worries, Democrats will proceed next year with legislation to ultimately make citizens out of most of the illegals now in the country. And Republicans, still reeling from deep losses in the November elections, will give up the fight.
So, it's a done deal. In fact, as many argue, mass immigration of poor, uneducated serfs might be good for the American economy even though it's bad for wherever the serfs live. I use the term "serfs" resignedly, and I hope that the condition doesn't deteriorate to that point.
Given that illegal immigration will be legalized and we're going to be faced with incomprehensible numbers of poor, uneducated immigrants, we really need a comprehensive assimilation program to help our culture absorb them as quickly and painlessly as possible. If we succumb to "multiculturalism" rather than the traditional American "melting pot" paradigm, we're all going to end up losing as the immigrants drag the rest of the country down to their cultural level rather than us pulling them up to ours.
And yes, I'm a cultural chauvinist. I believe that the American culture is the best in the world, and that anyone who wants to immigrate here needs to assimilate into our culture, not vice versa. They need to learn English, and they need to learn to appreciate our low level of corruption and republican form of government. They need to be capitalists, not parasites. They need to educate themselves and work hard. They have to live with the fact that our founding fathers were white males; I don't care what color anyone else's skin is, so immigrants can't hold the founders' whiteness against them.
Look folks, it's going to happen. Let's make the best of it. The beauty of capitalism and democracy is that they aren't zero-sum games -- we can all be winners.
Usually, when the punishment of a crime is to pay a fine, it is assumed that you also stop committing the crime. In this case, however, an illegal immigrant who is caught and made to pay could be then allowed to stay (i.e. to keep committing the crime). I mean, that approach to the problem is not entirely crazy (it's slightly better than nothing), but it sounds quite unlike the way other crimes are dealt with. I mean, having paid a speeding ticket does not give me the right to drive as fast as I want whenever I want.
I appreciate that most illegal immigrants risked and/or sacrificed everything they had, and went through a lot of unpleasant stuff, so as to be able to end up here (since the alternative was even worse). So I don't see them as malicious evil-doers. However, if the US has laws that determine who can and who cannot be here, then breaking these laws should have consequences analogous to those of breaking other laws.
As for the cultural chauvinism, I think it's important to distinguish the "how a society ought to be structured and to govern itself" part of culture, and the "how I dress, how I talk, what music I listen to, what my hobbies are, what my relationships with my family are, what my spiritual beliefs are" part of culture. I agree with Michael that the "how a society ought to be structured and to govern itself" part of American culture is possibly the most enlightened in the world (although the US could learn a thing or two from Europe, IMHO). But the "how I dress, how I talk, what music I listen to, what my hobbies are, what my relationships with my family are, what my spiritual beliefs are" part of American culture is something that practically no immigrant embraces completely, and you can't expect them to. I'm sure you'll agree with me that American popular culture has been driven pretty far into brainlessness by the Darwinian marketplace of products and services marketed towards adolescents, and by media that focus on soundbites, drama, and fear, rather than on exploring grey areas. Additionally, other nations have slightly different ideas of what family relationships should be like, and they will probably prefer those over American family relationships. I myself am pragmatic enough to see that a typical American family does a few things that are better than the way most Brazilian families are structured (expecting everyone to help around the house, expecting kids to do things for money (like baby-sit or mow the lawn or get a summer job), having parents that are involved in school groups and sports teams, having the kids move out when they go to college), but there are some things about Brazilian parenting that I am sure are superior to the way a lot of Americans parent parent, and I hope my kids will notice this and carry those principles down at least to their kids. I could elaborate on that if you want, but it would double the size of this comment.
Anyways, I am fairly sure you respect me as an immigrant and as someone who admires many important things about the US, but make no mistake, there are some aspects of American "culture" that most immigrants (and most smart Americans) try to stay away from, quite understandably.
I have friends on other countries who would love to be instant Americans. And they already have learned to speak English fluently as their second language. And they seem to be true hard-working Americans, even though they live in other countries. They cannot walk across the border, but I'd like to know one this: if they can make it to America soon, will they become citizens, too? That would be great if my this one friend of mine could move to America and make more than $100 a month. It would be wonderful for him to be able to buy more than a pair of shoes after two weeks of work.
Yeah, I know, there's no way friends would be able to luck out and get instant citizenship just by being here. They'd be honest and ethical enough in finding housing and work that they'd get caught and deported in a week.