The real problem is that Mexico has deep problems and is overdue a revolution. I don’t bear malice to the Mexicans. The phrase “Don’t judge a man till you’ve been standing in his shoes” applies, except I pray I and other Americans don’t end up that desperate. And if I was a Mexican, I’d want to join their revolution and fight the corrupt government (they blew up a gas pipeline to a Hershey’s plant a while back!) but my family would hold me back. I’d have relatives who’d need me and if I fought I’d just end up dead with little to show for it. So I’d risk going north, being treated like subhuman vermin to get money and send it home…

The rich elite on our side are using one group of people against another. And America has tolerated this for years, except now it’s affecting the mainstream like it did in the great depression. The rich elite in Mexico use this as a “Pressure valve” to keep their revolution manageable.

What needs to be done is stop this false economy. No more illegal immigrants hired or employers face the full weight of the law. If they hire 8 illegals, they get the book thrown at then and when they get out of jail, they go through the whole thing again 7 times. Have CEO’s dragged from boardrooms by bounty hunters because one of their chain stores had an illegal worker in some midwestern state. It could stop real quick.

And the Mexicans would go home and having no other choice, they’d fight as hard as they work. I’m for giving them money, food, even weapons to help as they return. It’d be something we should do in the true revolutionary spirit of our founding fathers and a final “Remember the Alamo!”. Not racist, but the fact that Mexico’s elite are the heirs of those that butchered Davy Crockett and others at that famous standoff.

For the past few years you’ve been working on the Transborder Immigrant Tool,
which sounds like it’s really going to chafe the asses of millions of people

Oh, the comments section for this post is going to be so much fun.

I have to say, I do like it when people annoy the Minute Men (pronounced: mī-ˈnüt men).

The Desert: Darwin’s immigration exam.

Actually, weapons streaming from the US into Mexico are arming the drug lords. The US is responsible for the crime wave in Mexico, not the other way around.

Not any more.

(Also the “federal” in “federal law” starts with a lowercase “f”- it’s really not that important.)

Sucks for Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Panamanians and all the other whatevers from Central and South America.

There’s lots of room for disagreement over how the US and the countries to its south should handle the ongoing migration northward. And there’s plenty of blame to go around for various failures of public policy.

But nobody deserves to die for it.

The presence of US weaponry certainly doesn’t help, but it’s probably not the root cause

We have American guns sneaking north into Canada too; smuggled American guns are used in something like 80% of Toronto’s gun crimes, if I remember the figure thrown around in the last election correctly. But we don’t have anything like the crime problems of Mexico. Ergo, the guns are not the cause, although they are probably an aggravating factor.

We need Canadian minute men to keep US guns where they belong – in the US.

Those illegal alien workers help our businesses to prosper and I assume that a lot of the money they earn is being used to buy goods from American businesses, so I really don’t have a problem with them being here.

Who’s interest does it serve to have “these people” die lost in the desert?

The problem of illegal immigration absolutely needs to be addressed, and I hope that someday we can find solutions that will remove the incentives for people to risk everything to cross the border illegally. Possibly some combination of helping Mexico improve their economy so that people will not feel so desperate they are willing to risk their lives to seek work in the US and a realistic guest worker program so workers can enter the country legally can be achieved eventually, but until that time I can’t find it within myself to wish that some of those who are the most in need die in the desert to discourage others from crossing illegally.

Until the governments in the two countries can fix the underlying causes of illegal immigration, I say bravo to BANG labs for working to save peoples lives.

I think the majority who attempt to cross the border though the desert are mostly those without means or connections…think women and children. It’s extremely treacherous, and many do die attempting it. It’s no wonder religious and humanitarian groups try to give assistance. Smugglers, potential terrorists and other bad people often have the means and connections to come over via more direct routes—like in cars. I think the reality is the concept of hard borders is and will continue to be problematic and difficult to enforce. We are a nation of immigrants and will continue to be.

I grew up in Nogales, Arizona, on the border. Hundreds of people, sometimes entire families, die in the desert *every year* trying to make it to the United States. Even if you believe they all deserve to be punished no matter their motives, death by heatstroke and dehydration is a harsh penalty.

This is a human rights issue and I’m disappointed in how quickly some BoingBoing readers jumped to score political points on immigration.

I don’t want people dieing in the desert….

but I ALSO don’t want people entering this country illegally…..

We need reform on so many issues in America….how are we going to fix everything? Homosexual equality, health care, immigration, the economy, wars, food, famine, electricity, failing infrastructure, underfunded schools, record unemployment, I could go on for hours.

If we just wait a few more years to fix just a few of these problems…..we won’t have to worry about “them damn mexicans” coming up here to find jobs….we’ll all be headed down there.

Personally, I think that people willing to brave a deserts guarded by barbed wire, government authorities, and gun wielding red necks only to be dumped naked into a land where they speak a foreign language and the average family has the income of your entire village are actually EXACTLY the type of hardy bad asses that we should be letting in. These are just modern day American pioneers.

And I like America, it’s a cool country, but every time someone says ‘they shouldn’t try to come here illegally’ I just sigh. Why do you think they’re trying to escape from their third world hell into a country that proclaims itself to be the land of freedom and opportunity and is filled with virtually nothing but immigrants and their children? For kicks? To annoy those who got there a few decades earlier? They risk their lives for the fun of it?

No, they risk their lives because they are desperate. Their method may not deserve support, but they deserve compassion and respect and not to be treated like pests. I have relatives currently in the US who came over years ago and stayed, illegally. They were fleeing from a repressive, communist government. They wanted to live in a country that respected freedom, where, even working in jobs well below their potential, they would not be denied basic human rights. I don’t think that’s an insult to America.

People aren’t going to stop coming just because we offer them no aid– they’re economic refugees. You can want people to take the legal, expensive, long route to immigration (though it’s not an option for many) and still recognize those who don’t as human.