Why does America tolerate illegal immigration?
Honestly, when it comes right down to it, we (as a country) tolerate illegal immigration for one primary reason:MONEY.That's right. Illegal immigration is a HUGE economic boon to the USA. About a quarter of all illegals work in jobs that American citizens/legal residents WON'T DO. Not "won't do at that wage", but "won't do at any price". Sure, you might take a job at a slaughterhouse for a summer as a kid, but would anyone you know be willing to work at that kind of job for DECADES? The answer has been shown to be NO, we won't. Truth is, certain jobs Americans now consider "beneath" them. We populate those jobs with immigrants (both legal and illegal) who have not yet absorbed that cultural taboo. In the other case, we use illegals as cheap labor. About HALF of all farm workers are illegals. We pay them well below "market" rates. Which keeps our grocery bills down. Replacing these workers with Americans (if you can get them to work at all, as South Carolina found out they couldn't) would easily double the labor costs. Which translates into a 40-50% increase in your grocery bill for most foods. The Construction, Janitorial, and Home Servant industries are the same.We tolerate them because we can't find anyone else to do the work we need and/or we're simply not willing to pay people the "required" wage to do it. We're cheap. It's that simple.
Is it really practical to deport 11 million illegal immigrants?
Yes, it's practical, and cheaper than the alternative, which is allowing them to remain. Under Eisenhower, the US deported over 3 million illegal aliens a year. Illegal aliens have cost American taxpayers over a trillion dollars a year every year since at least 2002. Deporting them would save US taxpayers a fortune! It is NOT enough to clamp down on employers since less than half of illegal aliens work. The majority of them are dependents, mostly depending on taxpayers (welfare fraud, etc.), charities, or proceeds of crime. With a sharp clampdown on illegal aliens - all persons not legally present - at least half them will leave of their own accord. Demonstrated by studies as well as the experience of Arizona, which saw a sharp increase in illegal aliens departing the state with passage of state laws & improved rates of handovers to immigration authorities. A major crackdown on illegal immigration actually costs next to nothing, but saves huge amounts of taxpayer money since they will pay their own way home. "Depart or be deported" will end overcrowding in schools, open up subsidized housing for low-income seniors & disabled (57% of subsidized housing units have one or more illegal aliens living there!), reduce crime by a third or more, open up several million jobs for Americans at every level from illiterate to PhD, etc. As for the argument that the costs of fruits & vegetables will double, that's sheer idiocy. First, mechanization eliminates the needs for most temporary farm workers & cuts costs. Only a relatively few illegals do any farmwork. And most who do such work have families collecting welfare, etc.