This is a real picture of people that I went to visit in 2008 and 2010 in Guatemala, you will see the rock sink and behind that is where they cook. When they don't have a close family relation that is a US Citizen or resident the chances that they can even apply to come to the US legally are almost nothing. In this town they make about $60 per month unless they are lucky and work at the banana plantation and then they make $200 a month working 6 days a week.  Having said that you need to understand that the cost of living there is about $650 per month and most people live way below the real cost of living. Many times young kids will drop out of school to add another income to the family budget. This happened to my daughters friend last year.

So if mom and dad are working that adds up to $120 or only 18% of the cost of living so it is no wonder one family member will come to the US illegally and end up making $10 per hour which is 25 times the money they could make back home so if they send $300 a month home the family can improve their situation several fold. I am not saying this is right or should be happening but this is reality.  Many illegal immigrants bring crime into the country while the majority just want to work and send money back home.

I have interviewed many illegal immigrants and after speaking with them you learn so much about them. Understand that if they are caught while crossing the border they are deported and this is a crime, however if they are not caught and they make it over the border then the situation they find themselves in is "Unlawful Presence" which is not criminal but only a civil infraction. This is why the authorities are limited in what can be done. Now there are other factors as well. If we deport them all we will loose over 10 billion that they contribute to the mismatched social security fund each and every year, millions of landlords would loose renters, millions of children would loose parents, without the property tax that is being paid on those rentals billions of dollars in education money would be lost. These are unintended circumstances we don't contemplate.

So I don't justify it although I do understand it. We also need to be prepared to suffer the consequences of whatever we decide to do. Many states passed tough immigration laws and last year alone over 1 billion dollars in crops rotted in the fields. We need to seek solutions that don't separate families of people that are not criminals.