There is a massive difference between illegal immigration and legal immigration. There is no doubt our country benefits from legal immigration. It would benefit even more if you made the system more merit based.
In addition, there is no doubt, that our country can benefit from worker visa programs like H1B or potentially a guest worker program for farm workers.
With both legal guest workers and legal immigrants, our government has the ability to background check individuals, health check them, and so deliver needed workers without endangering citizens or overloading certain jobs like low wage service jobs with immigrants that drive down wages for Americans who in many cases are struggling to make ends meet.
My grandmother, mother, wife, and daughter-in-law were legal immigrants from the Carribean, Europe, Asia, and African respectively, so I am certainly not anti-immigrant. Instead, I am pro-American workers.
Our guest worker programs should ensure the cost of hiring guest workers is higher than the cost of higher American citizens, so that they are deployed to fill a labor shortage and not used to drive down wages.
For farm workers, it is brutal to make them support themselves in the "off season", when it is far cheaper for them to support themselves in their home countries, even more importantly the "off season" in our country is often the "peak season" in theirs.
We also want to protect immigrants from bigotry towards immigrants because open borders have produced a massive influx of immigrants with criminal backgrounds. When these immigrants commit crimes, that get painted just like whites do when some white idiot commits a hate crime, or some black male robs a store. American citizens who commit violent crimes should be locked up... but illegal immigrants with criminal records should never get into this country in the first place and those that enter and commit a violent crime should be deported or prosecuted not released into the general public. Doing so, hurts immigrants, it is not social justice.
We need to be realistic with respect to immigration. Guest worker programs should include sponsorships by employers who take on the responsibility of employing, housing, and keeping track of immigrants and when the time comes from them to go home, should arrange their transportation and send them home.
Legal immigrants should also have as a criterion of their initial immigrant visa (5 years), a sponsor. That can be a family, employer, or a local social organization that will take on the responsibility of housing and caring for the needs of the immigrant and helping them assimilate into American culture.
America has the advantage of being a country of immigrants, you would think by now we would have figured out how to make immigration work smoother. We haven't.
Illegal immigrants should be deported. Our borders secured. We should expand legal immigration but carefully monitor "the mix" of immigrants so as not to put too much stress on any community or occupation. Existing illegal immigrants without criminal records, should be given a one-time opportunity to become guest workers if they have an employer willing to sponsor them or have their own businesses. Unlike other guest workers they will be allowed to remain indefinitely as long as they do not commit crimes and are being compensated at "market" rates (we must do everything to eliminate the incentive to hire immigrants to make American workers poorer).
Having live among immigrants for my whole life, the bring a great deal to joy of living through the sharing of the culture and traditions, but let's not confuse that "benefit" with our responsibility as a nation to look after the safety and economic opportunity of our citizens.
