"There's a hair in my farina! There's a hair in my farina!"

Immigration is much in the news lately, with various bigots and nativists on the right spewing hate at every turn. Many of you may have heard about Bill O'Reilly (with John McCain) musing on the need to preserve the "white, Christian, male power structure" in the US. You also may have heard some pandering of Democrats in the recent presidential debate explaining how their various immigration positions do not amount to an "amnesty"...never mind polls show the American people support legalization (what Wolf Blitzer was referring to as an "amnesty") of undocumented immigrants by fairly large majorities. While I don't have very well developed thoughts on the ins and outs of various changes in immigration policy, my basic view is that:

1. "Guest worker" programs strike me as a bad idea because, like the current system, they create a vast class of people who are easily exploited because they don't have the legal protections that come with citizenship.

2. Building a Berlin Wall-style fence on our southern border is so incomprehensibly stupid I don't even feel the need to elaborate. I will say that the image it sends and the huge sums of money it will cost should be reason enough to write off that moronic idea.

3. Any solution to our current immigration issues will need to involve legalization of those who are already here and a vast increase in the amount of legal immigration permitted (not to mention making that process simpler, fairer, and less expensive).

Oh, and end NAFTA.