200...,....

My mom lives in the somewhat rural south -- NC -- 3 of the companies that closed their plants a few years ago to use cheap overseas labor have either re-opened or are in the process.

Interestingly enough, the boat building industry is also seeing a very large cost increase in Asian built boats by the time they hit US shores. A lot of boats are built at yards in China, and labor/shipping costs are the reason they don't price attractively like they did 2 years ago. A Bob Perry project has been re-priced at least 3 times in the last year over this exact thing.

In addition to insane logistics and costs to build a 2000 mile wall, it would be considered a huge political slap in the face to one of our very best trade partners.

If the government can't stop drugs coming into this country after 40 years of trying to accomplish that bogus mission, they can't stop people coming in anywhere along 20,000 miles of our borders.

The best solution I see is to help increase Mexico's economy so that there are less of their population living in poverty and without job opportunities. The only reason undocumented workers come here is to make more money than they can down there. Solve that problem and they won't come here.

Actually I agree with you about that. I am very sympathetic towards immigrants personally. When I lived in the US (Brooklyn) most of my associates and friends were immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia. I am currently a legal documented immigrant in Latvia so I understand better than most the issues involved.

That being said, there has to be some attempt to enforce the law. My personal solution is to put up a wall on the southern border with Mexico, increase legal immigration and streamline the process (the legal immigration process in the US would make the Soviets proud), and provide amnesty for the immigrants that are currently here.

If the Mexicans can't manage their money, that's not the fault of the US or any other country besides Mexico.

In 2004, Mexico was the 5th largest producer of oil on this planet. Nearly 4 million barrels each day, almost double the per day production of Iraq, a country I'm sure we've all heard about.

To add insult to injury, they are also 9th on the Net Exporters of oil list for the same calendar year, with just about half their production being exported. Which, coincidentally, is only slightly less than Iraq's totally daily production.

Maybe Mexico needs a dictator with some WMDs. We can invade Mexico, take the oil and put all the itinerant poor on welfare.

Out of the top ten oil producing countries in the world, only 3 are not on the Net Exporters list -- China, US, Canada...

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.html

The problem with most of the Latin countries, you only have 2 classes, the very rich and the very not rich. LOL.

If they'd drop their elitist class structure and start building up a large solid middle class then they'd become more like the US's economic class structure.

Might not solve the problem fully, but it would have some positive impact.

The great wall of china was constructed over 2000 years ago and spans over 4000 miles. It was built to keep out unwanted Mongols. This is not by any means a difficult task to construct - humans have been able to build it for over two millenia now, so the arguement that it is impractical is not valid.

As far as it being seen as a 'political slap in the face', they'll get over it, and if they don't, then it's not our problem anyway.

That's just naive. There is not a 20000 mile problem area anyway, it's only a very small portion of the border where the problems are arising.

While that would probably be the ideal method (seeing the problem taken care of from within their own country), I don't know how that would happen without it costing Americans something.

Just a note for all you people that keep sprouting "This is OUR country, not theirs!", please try to remember, the Native American Indians where here in the US long long time before the white man came and slaughtered them all, stole their lands, then forced the remaining ones still alive onto Indian Reservations as token compensation.

So lets not forget our national history. This is only our land, because we stole it from the natives who where here first.

You must always remember that.

More importantly, they must always remember that THEIR ANCESTORS LOST THE WAR.

No living person here took any land from any other living person. What you are speaking of happened over 100 years ago and is a quarrel long since past between a bunch of dead people. Get the fuck over it already. Whoever was right or wrong about any of it is dead now.

It's just another excuse to try to get people to think that they owe them something that they didn't earn.

Do you ever notice that you never hear of white people complaining about the various feuds and slaughters that happened in europe throughout the past centuries?

So yes, this OUR country, not theirs, it belongs to us, American citizens living today. It doesn't belong to the dead.

Remember that.

What are everyone's thoughts about the idea of making Mexico a new state in the United States?

That would solve all the issues instantly. :1orglaugh

We'd add 106 Million to our population base.

We'd get Mexico's $1 Trillion GDP which would go way up if managed by the USA.

Pickup another 2 Million sq. miles of land.

Get 3.4 Million barrels a day of oil production plus 46 billion barrels of reserves worth nearly $3 Trillion.

:thumbsup

Apparently some people here have selective memory and double standards.

Keep dreaming. Not gonna happen.

Well, in the case of Mexico's oil production, this simply isn't the case. Mexico is a notable exception to non-OPEC member countries, because of the amount of oil they produce and the fact that the government owns the oil production, not private industry.

So I'll just refer to my original suggestion of how we handle it.