Illegal immigration is a hot political potato, and there is no clear red/blue divide.
The issues are three:
- Illegal immigrants take jobs at sub-legal wages, lowering the value of labor marketed by legally resident laborers.
- Babies born in the US to illegal immigrant mothers generate a demand for public and infrastructure resources, for the baby, for the mother, and for future children. By consuming these resources, less is left for legal residents and citizens, effectively lowering the breadth, depth, and quality of our social safety net.
- Uncontrolled access to the corpus of the US opens us up to infiltration by those who would do us harm, by terrorism, through smuggling, and other off-the-grid activities.
It is being proposed that the security fence in southern California be extended to the Gulf. The intent is to gain control over immigration across that border. Another suggested approach is to change from the "birthright" laws currently granting citizenship to anybody born here regardless of how that came to be true.
Mexico's Vincente Fox argues that it is the right of Mexican nationals to seek employment in the US and to ship money to Mexico. Some have suggested illegal aliens are Mexico's most profitable exports.
There is a frustrated subset of Americans, the MinuteMen, who have taken to providing a border based "Neighborhood Watch". These folks report what they perceive to be "illegals" coming into the country, bypassing the immigration statutes and checkpoints. Should we control entry into the country? Should we limit immigration into the country?