Nothing you said was bigoted...
The reasons stated so far in this thread to not call out military troops to the streets of US cities to round up undocumented immigrants (that term encompassing illegal immigrants who hopped the border as well as those who came legally and just stayed) are:
1) Economic Disruption;
2) Bad PR;
3) Lack of effectiveness;
4) Cost; and
5) Risk of violations of citizen's civil rights.
As you rightfully pointed out, there are a zillion other things wrong with this plan.
You chose to focus on the economic argument Conan made. Specifically, 1) we are accustomed to an "illegally" supported economy, and you feel this is 2) creating an artificial bubble, and 3) the only reason not to do it is inertia to change. Before I address each of those, let me point out that none of them are a reason to deport millions of people. The reasons given by Trump include:
To stop a crime waive that doesn't exist.
To protect the children from things that don't exist.
To stop the Mexicans from taking our jobs when 95% of Americans are employed.
To stop the Mexicans from living off the government (which is paradoxical to the previous statement and untrue).
And because it's illegal.
I'm not arguing for open borders. Few are. What we are discussing is the resources devoted to and mechanism of immigration enforcement. Presumably, you are in favor of increasing those resources still further for your stated reasons:
1) We are accustomed to an "illegally" supported economy.
Essentially, the statement is that the economy is generating a lot of wealth from undocumented immigrants so we don't want to change it. Isn't that a rational position? Certainly generating wealth isn't a reason to want to destroy the system. And even if we did, one is hard pressed to find an economist who advocates for sudden massive fluctuations in an efficiently functioning market. Certainly arguing to "call out the troops" to destroy a segment of the market isn't rational in and of itself.
2) Bubble.
Comparing illegal immigration to the housing bubble is not an apt comparison. The housing bubble was wealth based on speculation - John Q bought a house that cost more than 25% of his annual income (a warning point) and then Jane Doe bought it for an even a worse ratio. As long as the pyramid scheme continued everything was great. And the scheme was(is) supported by government subsidies that encourages home buyers to buy as much as they can (the more mortgage deduction you get!) and lenders to flip their loans as quickly as possible (transfers risk to the government and generates more transaction fees). As soon as once cycle is delayed, things start to fall apart quickly.
Illegal immigration generates wealth directly from production - there is no speculation and no pyramid scheme required to support it. If anything, the illegal immigration economy is less based on credit than the general economy. With no credit and no speculation, I'm not sure a bubble is even possible.
and 3) Inertia.
For all the reasons stated above, this isn't simply inertia. Furthermore, in defense of institutional inertia, sudden and dramatic shifts should demand dramatic reasons. We simply don't have them here.
- - -
The easiest way to take care of a problem is usually on the supply side. There are almost always less suppliers than there are consumers. They are easier to influence and often have more to lose.
Want to crack down on drug cartels? Create a legal market so consumers can get the supply.
Want to stop housing bubbles? Requiring greater equity before the fed will guarantee a loan.
Want to limit illegal immigration - focus on the supply of jobs.
11,000,000 are in the US because at
least half of them are employed at legitimate businesses. All the talk is on "rounding up" illegal immigrants and shipping them across the border. That's never stopped them from coming back before, it seems unlikely to be successful now. What has stopped them?
They don't come when there are no jobs. When we have more labor than jobs, Mexican immigration stalls dramatically. So why not attack their jobs if we are serious?
Make an easy system for employers to verify legal status and put a system in place to verify that status when the work papers on file expire. The fines can be substantial and grow with each offense ($250 to $10k per employee), they can result in jail time for managers. Yet total fines in 2012 (last year I found data) was i the $12mil range, with less than 400 companies being fined. The median fine was $11k.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/12/23/audits-illegal-immigrants/1787213/Under our current system, we spent $138 million trying to enforce the employment laws, resulting in 339 companies being fined. We spent ~ $5 Billion dollars trying to round up and deport illegal immigrants. Our efforts have doubled down again and again on the wack-a-mole strategy of deporting people, it hasn't worked. Try to do something different maybe?
If we make it hard for illegal immigrants to fine employment and we continue to focus on deporting criminal immigrants - we can actually get where many want us to be. If we couple it with saner immigration laws, we could actually tackle the issue in a comprehensive way. Sprinkle in some drug policy changes and even less would need to flee violence (taking away another reason for immigration).