Goddam immigrants! I tell ya, my family has had nothing but trouble with immigrants since we got to this country!
First, I agree. Either enforce the law or change it. This wishy washy "well, we need illegally low wage agricultural laborers to keep the prices of food bearable so we just won't fully enforce the border laws we have... and then we can turn it into a divisive election issue!! Perfect!" is doing the country no good.
Second... this is what armed forces are for everywhere else: enforcing borders. So, do we want to give the Army permission to operate on US soil or not? That would raise some eyebrows with the crowd that wantsall illegals gone, now wouldn't it? Same goes for giving the border guard the funding, equipment and numbers they would need to actually do the job as they would look and act just like the armed forces. Exactly how are we supposed to enforce immigration laws when we aren't willing to give the Border Guard the teeth they need to do so?
Third... Obama is no more or less above the law than any other president given the task of figuring out the immigration issue as part of the role of the Administrative Branch. Get over it.. King Bush II
did something similar when he offered amnesty and temporary work visas to illegals already in the country. And drew similar criticism from the hard right. The point of both attempts is to get a percentage of the illegals into a legal process and start bringing clarity to the issue.
Fourth... no one directly involved with the benefits of illegal immigration WANTS that clarity. Employers don't want to have to pay fair wages to American who don't want those jobs anyway and illegals don't want to get anywhere near an authority that might kick them out. Its not just Mexicans wanting into the US, its ag giants wanting cheap labor and not caring that its illegal as long as they can get away with it. As long as the enforcement of laws stays fuzzy there is a comfy gray area large enough to make some profit.
Firth... illegal immigration when a rich country is next to a poor county is an age old problem that no one has ever solved. Its not surprising that our leaders have never solved it. And simply enforcing the law wouldn't solve the problem, either, as the immigrant work force IS a part of the economic equation. Removing that force from the equation would both incur great expense for enforcement and great loss due to higher wages and the resulting higher food (and construction) costs.
Not an easy issue at all. Much easier to use for politics than to actually solve. Congrats! You are falling into the politics of it while getting no closer to a workable solution. Like most of the issues of consequence in this country.
edit: Fixing links since I now realize I had the syntax wrong...