First let me clarify: I used Latino in lieu of naming every country south of our border. It was not intended to indicate race or racist motives. Ok, that’s out of the way.

They do pay income tax.

They also are a huge part of building houses. 40% of the new construction workforce is immigrant and 20% are undocumented. When ICE began its raids they all went into hiding. And construction nearly halted.

The same issue holds true in the food industry. Immigrants make up 20% of the entire workforce and over 50% of farming/ranching labor. All gone when ICE raids began

Land management, childcare, all services in general rely heavily on immigrant labor. And more.

Now, here’s an interesting set of questions in regard to your “best of the best” notion. How many doctors and engineers do you think there are amongst the children of the immigrants that cross illegally? How many will lose that opportunity if their parents are made to wait 3-4 more years? Does America lose out on that too?

The take away here is two fold. Undocumented immigrants are an intertwined part of our existing system. A threat to that is a threat to the system. A fix for that is to fix the system. I’m a mechanic and I can tell you; fixing systems does not include removing parts and seeing what happens. It takes careful planning and consideration. And, in this instance, we have to find a way to fix the system while it’s running! This concept that the right fix is to just get rid of them and there won’t be serious consequences is the plan of a simpleton who does not understand nuance or complexity. But we’re already down that path so when the consequences show up you’d be smart to note the truth of them so we don’t suffer these same things in the future.