What is an immigration progressive platform?

Deport all un-authorized workers?
Separate families?
Deny rights and services to immigrants?
Deny pensions to people who contribute to the SS fund?
Verify that any person of color is "legal"?
Deny immigrant workers access to unions?

regardless of their legal or illegal status. One of the reasons that people are treated like dirt is that authorities dehumanize them first, then it's easy to deny them of any rights at all and even abuse them. We need laws that state that human beings have certain basic rights no matter their legal status. This could be a start to mitigating those abuses you state.

but control immigration by pressuring the employers responsible for putting out the bait of low wage jobs.

If someone is here legally, they should be allowed to join a union, or work to form one.
There is no real answer for the taxation issue, imho...those illegals who do pay taxes will never be able to benefit from the SSI, yet they are helping support the public services they use.
Those who do their work under the table (which includes a certain percentage of legal workers, including American citizens) won't have any SSI to collect.
Everyone should be verified for legal status, not just "people of color" or however you worded it.

Bottom line for me is: Make the employers adhere to labor laws, including health and safety issues.

They are here on work visas because they are sponsored by their employers. Allowing them to unionize will mean they will be SOL when a strike comes, because the company will then simply refuse to sponsor the visa.

then we need to focus on the businesses that hire illegal workers first and foremost. Most illegal immigrants will leave of their own accord if they can't find work. In fact, because of the recession, some are already doing so. So mass rounding up of illegals would probably be a mute point. As far as your specific points:


Deport all un-authorized workers?- It depends on who we are talking about doing the initial step. If a police officer or INS worker finds out in the course of duty that someone is an illegal or has good info of their locale, then yeah, they need to be deported. If it's a librarian or doctor, they have no obligation to report anything.

Separate families?- If the entire family is composed of illegals, then no, they would ALL go back- no separation needed. If it's a mixed grouping, then yeah, the illegals go back, and the rest of the family can try to arrange something with the country of origin regarding immigration if they want to not be separated. If a family has been here for five years illegally, they have already had five years of a good ride (presumably, compared to their point of origin). The ride is over.

Deny rights and services to immigrants?- Most services would end, some wouldn't. For example, treatment for acute health conditions shouldn't be dependent on your status. Treating a contagious disease, for example, provides a greater benefit to society than whatever healthcare costs are never recovered. But most services would end. Rights are a funny word. Do they apply to those who forced their way uninvited into this jurisdiction? I don't think so, but there are plenty who would disagree. They have a right to be treated humanely to their point of origin, that's about it.

Deny pensions to people who contribute to the SS fund?- Yes.

Verify that any person of color is "legal"?- There are illegal Poles living in certain sections of the Chicago area and everyone knows it- the signs are all in Polish. There are people that come here from Russia for a visit and 'disappear'. But it's true that the overwhelming majority of illegal immigration is from Mexico and Central America. If you're implying some sort of profiling being sanctioned then no.

Deny immigrant workers access to unions?- I'd imagine it's up to the union, but what kind of union would go on record as aiding and abetting the breaking of law?


Now, let's look at the other side. Illegal immigration absolutely destroys the poor in this country, they are hit the hardest. The construction industry is a perfect example. You could make a hard but decent living in construction in the past. As more and more firms hired illegals, the wages fell greatly, taking away an opportunity that many poor and lower middle class families had relied on for generations. Don't tell me Americans won't do these jobs, Americans take jobs fishing in Alaska -an incredibly hard and dangerous job. They will take these jobs if the pay is right, and these days, probably even if it isn't.

One of the groups that most want illegal immigration to continue is the business sector, what does that tell you? They want cheap labor to increase their profits and they want workers who will do as they are told and not even think about unions. Unions are typically a progressive vision, and they are being severely undercut by mass illegal immigration.

This country is a mature democracy, it is not the nineteenth century when waves of immigrants (who came here legally for the most part) were needed to settle land and toil for the industrial revolution. Our development and capacity has now reached a point where new, uninvited entries place strains on the ones already here.

One of the most fundamental definitions of a nation is its borders. There are certain rights and responsibilities for those who live in the border and those who live in it get to decide who should be allowed in. If you found out that someone was living in your attic but was very discreet and cleaned up after himself and replaced all the food he took from your fridge, would you be upset? I sure would, he wasn't invited. I get to decide who I want coming in and out, and so does any nation. No other nation allows the laxness that we do with our immigration policy except those without a functioning government. Try going to Mexico without authorization and marching in the street for your rights. Or Germany or France or whatever 'enlightened' nation you care to mention.

People like Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan have made progressives try to take on the opposite view just because they don't want to be associated with them, instead of thinking it through. There are plenty of immigrants in other parts of the world that could make remarkable contributions to America, and those are the immigrants we should be allowing entry. I am an American and will unashamedly support Americans first without apology. We need to start asking what the incoming immigrants can do for us instead of what can we do for them. Every other nation in the world does it, because it's basic common sense. Some will reel in horror saying this is heartless and cruel. It's heartless and cruel to inflict damages on the most vulnerable Americans while fattening the elites. It's heartless and cruel to continue enabling Mexico, for example, to continue its obliviousness to its own people because they know the disenfranchised will just come here. These aren't in any way long term solutions for either nation.

As for Latin America, we have played a role there all along, from the banana plantations to the funding of death squads to the failed war on drugs. That's the kind of stuff Lou Dobbs won't talk about. We need to discontinue any policy that undermines overtly or covertly any Latin American nation's sovereignty, just as we would not want our own destabilized. We need to support actual democratic movements within these nations so that they can become ones in which its citizens don't want to flee in the first place. Taking on all the problems of the world into our own borders will do nothing but weaken our own position.

immigrants, but legal ones will have the labor protections that we all have and they will be free to form or join unions. Increasing legal immigration will also reduce/remove the pressure to come or stay here illegally, when it becomes easier to do it legally.

Provide a legalization path for those here illegally, as supported by our unions and president.

Expand the E-verify system for confirming the eligibility of prospective employees to work in the US, even though the errors in the system will disproportionately affect Hispanic applicants.

While some may wish that the desire on the part of many to immigrate to the US would go away or be effectively bottled up, that hasn't happened for several centuries now. We can put our faith in a wall (like the Chinese and East Germans did) or in new laws like enhanced employer-sanctions or eliminating citizenship on the basis of birth in the US (like with Prohibition laws sometimes don't change reality), then spend our time sticking our fingers in holes in the dike we have created to hold back the water of immigration.

Or we can make legal immigration easier (like repealing Prohibition) and work to make it more beneficial to our country (perhaps in the way that Canada encourages immigration).