We have the Mexican population coming to American to earn money. Well....

Have them come over and EARN their citizenship. Have the illegal immigrants take 1 year to learn about their NEW COUNTRY and the ENGLISH langue.

Then, have them serve 4 years in the US Military. This way the money they make is circulated back in to our government. US can keep track of all incoming and outgoing aliens, and most important... they have fought for their country to deserve the FREEDOM that was built years ago.

Thing is, most don't come to the US for citizenship, they come for work oppourtunities. And how exactly are we supposed to execute this grand plan when we can't even keep track of immigrants now?

TRAIN, COUNSEL AND CIVILIZE, all the INMATES in all our jails. (the ones that wont run and are suitable) , A lot of those guys have brotherhood and comradary already, and know how to use weapons...

WE DO HAVE THOUSANDS THAT WOULD JOIN AND THEIR ALREADY AMERICANS . START LETTING LOW LEVEL CONVICTED FELONS OR PEOPLE ON PROL.OR PROB. TO SERVE IN THE MILITARY AS A WAY TO CLEAR THEIR RECORD. LET THESE PEOPLE SERVE X NUMBER OF YEARS IN THE MILITARY AND GRANT THEM A FULL PARDON FOR PRIOR LOW LEVEL FELONIES. SO THEY CAN SERVE OUR COUNTRY AND HAVE A CHANCE AT A NORMAL LIFE.

This is already happening.

I know I'm from Texas, so maybe that's why I know that Texas has the most soldiers serving in the Iraq war, many of them Latinos and many of them also illegals who are fighting in the war for the promise of citizenship (a promise that isn't always kept.) Many of these are also kids who grew up in the States who have spoken English most of their lives, although many do still speak Spanish at home and in their communities. Why don't people know more about the soldiers who have been fighting in our war? (Just like this op ed writer who didn't know that the National Guard and Reserves ARE in Iraq and Afghanistan.) Try doing some research!

Your right we have quite a bit of service members who are active duty who are in the process of getting their green cards and have been serving for almost 10 years to include infantry, communications techs, mechanics and the lists goes on and on but lets not forget those people who are serving who comes back with their unit and then moves to another post and guess what they get a kick in the butt and they are right back in Iraq in less than a year.

The Roman Empire tried this when they ran short of willing recruits nearing the end of the western empire.

It didn't work.

On a small scale, with individual recruits intermixed with Romans and provincials it worked fine. They Romanized well and served faithfully.

However, once they tried it in large numbers, bringing in whole tribes under their native leadership, it failed since they had more loyalty to their own kin and had contempt for the people they fought for who demonstrated, by the large scale hiring of barbarians, were too weak and timid to defend themselves.

At the end, the "Roman" army had no Romans or Italians in it and very few provincials, being almost totally barbarian manned and even lead.

Imagine 90% of the Army today being made up of 1st generation Mexican immigrants who speak little or no english lead by Mexican college grads.

It's a path we don't want to take.

It has been happening already. Besides most of the people in the south west who are mexican comes from families who lived in that part of the US before it was even a state. I myself can trace my family history back 150 yrs ago and guess what they lived in California before it was a state. So I guess we all just melted together in the big melting pot that is America!!

avtech22:

It has been happening already. Besides most of the people in the south west who are mexican comes from families who lived in that part of the US before it was even a state. I myself can trace my family history back 150 yrs ago and guess what they lived in California before it was a state. So I guess we all just melted together in the big melting pot that is America!!

I got that, we're all immigrants and mutts (my wife is Mexican), but doing this on a wide scale or opening the door for doing this on a wide scale is dangerous because you may have so many foreign soldiers that they don't assiminate or hold real loyalty to the country.

As-is, we make Mexicans do too much of our dirty work, making us weaker in many ways.

We open the military too much, recruiters may not even bother trying to entice citizens from their cushy life and just go straight for that immigrant who's an easier recruit.

Imagine the resentment a hypothetical army of immigrants feels when they're sweating and dying for a country who's young, pasty, weak and hedonistic young men don't lift a finger for their own safety.

It's what killed Rome.

No, let's not ban all immigrants from service, but let's not go crazy and make them do our fighting for us. Relying on mercenaries instead of citizen soldiers kills nations.

It's funny... I served my time in IRAQ and I am on my way back next year.

Not saying that we have to have immigrants to do our work, they are already over here doing our dirty work. I am just saying, instead of having them come over to do every day jobs have them put to use in our military. We are short handed and we are doing multiple tours for what...

I am not against the war b/c I know what I have done has helped, but you can only help the people who want to be helped. There are many people who want to come over here to the Freedom Land and I think we should let them. All I ask in return is to except that this is their new country and to serve it when in need.

One more thing,

We already let inmates into the military to clean their record. Well guess what... they do the same crimes in the military instead out in the public.

They steal from us and don't care about anything but themselves. I know for a fact, how? Because it has happen to me.

Good idea to but our inmates to work but again, you can't make some work or change if they don't want to. Let the people who want to come over for so called "OPPERTUNITES" come over, just earn the "RIGHTS" to do so.

Where would you draw the line between enough immigrants (legal and otherwise) and too many? Depending on how close we are to that line, it may not be that big a deal.

why draw a line. screen before you let them in. I don't think we could ever have an over population of the USA. We have more land then people think, and we can start by building up instead of out.