I agree with you completely.

You don't need a wall. Prosecute everyone who hires an illegal immigrant and the jobs will dry up.

Make it so only U.S. citizens can get any financial or medical assistance from any government program and the benefits will dry up.

Do both, and there will be no rewards for coming to the states illegally and people will stop doing it.

It's not rocket science...and it's not gonna happen.

I agree with you completely, elliot.

"You Complete Me"

I'll get to the points I disagree with you in a bit. The draw of a guaranteed welfare state is indeed quite powerful, especially from a culture where the moon is promised and not delivered. Indeed, that's what made Wisconsin a welfare magnet back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Kill that draw and some of the illegals won't come.

The bigger problem is the level of regulation and taxation placed on those that do follow all the rules. There are entire classes of jobs that just are not worth effectively paying $6.25 per hour (once the payroll taxes are factored in). With the minimum wage going up to $7.25/hour and the effective cost of an employee going up to $7.75/hour, there will just be more jobs that won't be filled legally. Worse, between the artificial inflation throughout the economy caused by the minimum wage and the average 5% sales tax, there are any number of living situations (some even not caused by desire that is larger than the pocketbook) that are simply unsustainable by those earning something near that minimum who are trying to do so "legally".

Insofar as the 5-minutes goes, if there were any interest in securing the border, there would also be a "rapid reaction" team within roughly that distance to the border. That 5 minutes would slow down the invaders, be they "day-laborers" or terrorists or drug smugglers, enough for a signifcant number of them to get caught. Indeed, terrorists may take longer because they wouldn't want to announce their presence at the border, and might take the time to cover their tracks unlike the other groups.

Of course, there is no interest in actually securing the border for various reasons (that's a story for another post or dozen). I will say that if the more-radical of the illegals got their way and got the Southwest for either Mexico or themselves, that southern border will become a lot longer and a lot harder to defend.

The "problem" with the northern border is rather self-limiting. Take out the longest undefended border in the history of mankind and there are only two ways into Canada; by sea and by air (nobody is going to be walking the ice pack from the northern edge of Greenland or Russia). The illegal ways in via those two routes, lying to immigration and packing oneself into a container ship, are just as easily accomplished coming directly into the US as they are by coming to Canada first. While the Canadians aren't exactly thorough, they're more-competent and less-corrupt than the Mexicans.

One more thing - even though it takes far less than 5 minutes to break into a locked house or car, I'll wager you still lock your house and car up.