> most immigrants pay taxes because they work regular jobs

Source? Or are we just talking out of our asses? "Most" means something.

> And they're exempt from most social safety nets, too

Emergency rooms, census, etc. all still apply.

> How are they a net negative?

- Remittances directly take money out of our economy

- Per capita, as with most citizens, they cannot and do not pay their percentage of the government tax burden

- Free use of our social safety nets - ERs, many local government services, schools, etc.

- No community ties: if an illegal immigrant messes up, they can just move on the same way they came in.

- Directly stress an already-strained housing supply (inb4 'they do construction so they increase the supply!')

> Aren't we, basically, exploiting them

Yes! This is bad and needs to stop: by exploiting them (slave labor), we're additionally harming our most vulnerable part of the population - our own unskilled/impoverished workers.

> I'm gonna tell you right now it's not fatass white people pouring pavement or building homes

Because they are being undercut by illegal labor with no protections and lower wages? How is "we need slave labor!" a valid argument?

I don't think slave labor is good or desirable, but I do think that, obviously, that's not exploitative for the slaver. The slaver is not the one being exploited in that relationship.

I just don't see how they're a strain on us, like, at all. And I actually live in Texas. Yes there's a lot of theories and conjecture, but I think most of it is, frankly, made up.

It's trivial, truly trivial, to eradicate illegal immigration for good. Just make a law where if you hire an illegal immigrant, your executives go to jail. The problem would solve itself expiditiously.

But the GOP would never propose anything close to that, because they don't want to reduce illegal immigrantation. They don't. It's one of their greatest vectors of exploitation and one of the few factors that makes some red states economically viable.

So, if you're operating under the assumption ANY of this is for the purpose of reducing illegal immigration, you've been conned.