That neither side has done anything constructive to provide a workable solution to the problem just shows how deep the rot is on both sides of the aisle. But rather than enacting new laws which are either unenforcable, such as deporting 11,000,000 illegals, or create a permanent economically, linguistically and culturally separate underclass, as any guest worker program would do, we need do nothing more than enforce current immigration law. This means prosecuting employers who hire illegals to the full extent of the law.
It didn't help matters any that the Bush administration dismantled a successful program, started by Bill Clinton, to kick out false SSN's and track them back to employers with workers using these fake SSN's. That the issue has gained such prominence with the GOP only indicates their desire to use it as another wedge issue. But that effort seems to have generated some unanticipated blowback in the form of the division between the 'Cheap Labor' and 'Deliverance' wings of the Republican party. And with the Greedy losing traction to the Mean and Stupid, the real face of the Republican party is showing. Having co-opted the Boll-Weevil Democrats in the 60's and 70's, the leadership of the Republican party, which was formerly fiscally conservative and socially moderate, has trouble comprehending the monster they created when they let these socially conservative, religiously intolerant, ill-educated and somewhat racist population into the party. And their loss of control over this monster leaves them floundering, trying to balance the shrinking voice of reason in the party with the growing clamor of the irrational in the party.
