Unconditional amnesty is a term that can have many meanings in the context of dealing with millions of individuals. The real question is, do we want these individuals as citizens and what are the qualifications as such to become a US citizen. If our answer is definitely not, then a massive hunt will need to take place to find, arrest and bus these individuals back to Mexico, which works out to be approximately 200,000 bus trips.

With that in mind, note that Mexicans started in this country in the 1590's, which is probably earlier than your ancestors. Of course back then they didn't cross a border, rather the border moved.

In 1846, war broke out between the U.S. and Mexico over the U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico was defeated, and in 1848 the two nations signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This treaty gave the U.S.A. an enormous amount of land, including what would later become the states of California and Texas, as well as parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada, in exchange for a token payment of $15 mil.

One more important piece of land changed hands in 1854, when the U.S.A. bought what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico from the Mexican government for $10 million. This land deal, known as the Gadsden Purchase, brought the U.S. a railroad route, and helped open the West to further expansion. With two strokes of a pen, almost overnight, tens of thousands of Mexican citizens had become citizens of the United States.

Over the next 100 years, Mexican population in the States varied, depending on economic conditions. Prior to the depression, Mexicans were courted to enter the U.S.A.

Then during the depression they were chased back into Mexico. During World War II over 4 million were brought in to this country to help the war effort in farming. After the War was won and we were through with them. Eisenhower as President developed a deplorable program nicknamed Operation Wetback. Bands of local law enforcement agents roamed the streets of our south west States arresting anyone that looked like a Mexican and busing them or shipping them back to Mexico. Many where here legally and American citizens.

Currently it is estimated that there are 20 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.A.

Whether or not this number is realistic is anyone's guess and probably is just that.

No one cared about illegal immigration until the 9/11 disaster. Then the paranoia from our President with Congress support sharply increased. Their ease at violating basic fundamental rights with the Patriot Act has only been surpassed by their political exploitation of illegal immigration, including Oklahoma's latest hoopla laws on the subject, which by the way are totally unconstitutional, but then when did that matter.

The US Governments first responsibility is protecting our borders. It was one of the founding principles of the U.S. Constitution. The blatant failure of our Government to perform its first responsibility is the first item to consider. The second is the incompetence of the massive bureaucracies that deal with people trying to get into this country.

Immigration into this country is part of our entire heritage and the legalities of it have changed over the years. We are a country of only 300 million people yet we have a higher standard of living, more freedom and the most powerful country the world has ever seen.

A country built on immigration from the rest of the world. Can you blame the people in Mexico wanting to come here, when all they had to do was walk down that road and cross some imaginary line to have a decent job and to be free.

The Mexicans that have come here didn't set out to be criminals or break laws, they were trying to escape the squalor, poverty and oppression in their own country.

We encouraged them to come here and we let them in.

We should offer these people citizenship as we have done over the past 200 years to the millions of people who have made this country what it is. This offer needs to be done to encourage them to apply, but done in the spirit that represent the United States of America and not the vendetta of a Conservative fringe group, nor the opportunism of a Liberal politician.

Building a fence and arresting families based on what they look like, places us on the same level as the totalitarianism of Russia with their Berlin Wall or the Ming Dynasty of ancient China.

If our forefathers were here today they would be appalled by us.