Continuing my thought re: immigration: In my opinion, we have laws for a reason, and we should make use of them and enforce them. We should not overlook people breaking immigration laws because they’re in a bad spot or because they do jobs we don’t want to do; and we should not have lax gun laws because “criminals don’t obey them anyway.”
We have what I’d call a “nod-and-wink” economy regarding undocumented workers, basically meaning we have two labor markets. We have one above-board market where workers have protections, safety regulations, legal recourse, and so on. And we have another market where workers have none of those things.
Well, we’re certainly not going to establish laws that overtly create second-class citizens (or second-class because-they’re-not-citizens). Just to begin with, the Declaration of Independence itself says “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
Also it would be a political nightmare.