Color Me "Not Sure"

As you can see from the picture of me in my profile, I'm a white girl. My family has been in America for many generations. The town I grew up in was overwhelmingly white. Rhode Island shares no borders with foreign countries. Thus, the immigration issue hasn't really been in the forefront of my life. Had I grown up in New Mexico or Texas, maybe I'd have more of an opinion about the new plans to fortify the borders and keep illegal immigrants from entering the country.

On the one hand, it's kind of shitty because the people who live here now were immigrants at one point, our families came on big boats to Ellis Island, tired, huddled masses, etc, and that we're the ones determining the cutoff of how many people from outside the country is enough. I mean, it's says something about the United States that so many people want to come here. Shouldn't we let them in?

But, on the other hand, we have avenues for people to come here and work legally, and it's unfair to the people who try to use those means that people who cheat get to benefit first. It's like when someone pushes in front of you in line and steals the last cookie. You played by the rules, you should get the delicious cookie.

I honestly don't know what the solution is. I don't know if using the National Guard is the way to go, since it's kind of stretched pretty thin, what with being in Iraq and hurricane season starting soon. We need the Guard for disasters. Can't we train border patrols quickly and hire a force of people to actually specialize in stopping illegal immigrants?

If you've got an opinion, I'd love to hear it, because I am kind of undecided on what the best policy is.