And for bonus points, we've created this ridiculously creaky legal
notion of identity that is based around having someone's social
security number. So if the government opens up some kind of web page
where you could check and verify SSN/name match ups it would invite
hackers to get a line on the mother of all databases. Can't have
that. So you can't plug the fake documents hole.

There might be a solution in some kind of national ID card, but even
apart from the civil liberties questions there are practical issues
(some people were born outside hospitals and don't have birth
certificates or the records have been lost),

Somehow methinks its
handiest to "officially" pretend hiring undocumented workers is wrong,
and by providing almost no enforcement de facto allow the practice.
Hypocritical, but politically handy. A tamper-proof national ID card
would make that little dodge impossible.

Then economic reality would
force a guest worker program - a realistic one, not one where people
already here are expected to leave the country and politely file some
paperwork asking to come back, eventually, and I guess ten million
plus jobs can just wait for them too. Sure, the farmers can just
take a couple of years off, and we'll close most of the restaurants
and hotels, with the few remaining charging twice as much. That'll
show those darn immigrants.

Take a look at the way things already are: a porous system allowing
many millions of undocumented workers. That's an economic reality. A
real fix has to take that in to account, and whining that those jobs
should be paying a higher amount to attract documented workers ignores
reality.