Kerry,

Regarding illegal immigrants "contributing" to the system; the real problem here are legal citizens who take advantage of the reduced cost of using illegal immigrants as a labor force. A very popular practice in my former residence, Atlanta, GA is to go to the local "labor pool" (translation: a bunch of Mexicans waiting on a corner) and pick up laborers for the day. The landscaping industry, which is big business in Atlanta, is very big on the labor pool. You can hire people real cheap for the day, they will work hard for long hours, and there's no messy tax stuff to deal with. The problem is, someone else (the US taxpayer) is paying the difference in wages plus a lot more at the end of the day. By hiring an illegal immigrant, you reduce the chances of other legal, taxpaying Americans of finding employment, and you cheat the government (taxpayers) out of the cost of whatever government services the illegal immigrant is going to consume while in this country. Sure, you save a few bucks, but you're sticking it to your fellow taxpayers at the same time.

People who claim that they do it out of sympathy are practicing pretty selective sympathy when you consider the number of legal citizens in the US who are out of work. Even if your sympathies are with minorities, there are still plenty of minorities who are legal citizens that need work. In the end, it all comes down to money. But what people don't realize is that they're still paying, it's just taking the form of higher taxes.

Ideally, I'd like to see a society with open borders and completely free enterprise, but until we abolish the welfare state and get a handle on terrorism, among other things, illegal immigration will always be damaging.