It can be done

For all the Washington bluster about the impossibility of rounding up illegal aliens to be sent home, it turns out to not be all that hard...

Federal officials fanned out across Southern California over the past week in one of the biggest sweeps of its kind, arresting 761 illegal immigrants ranging from murder suspects to visa violators.

Ending Tuesday, the raids were part of Operation Return to Sender - a national effort by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency that has netted more than 13,000 illegal immigrants nationwide since June 2006.

Some 450 of those arrested have already been deported, or voluntarily returned, to their native countries, ICE officials said.

"Anytime we can take 761 people off the street who have violated the laws of this country is a big success," said Jim Hayes, Los Angeles field office director for ICE's detention and removal operations.

The Southern California raids took place in Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino Counties. They included the arrest of two men near Palm Springs wanted for murder in Sinaloa, Mexico.

The men were turned over to Mexican law enforcement officials on Friday.

The majority of those arrested in the Southland were Mexican, but they included nationals from 13 other countries, including India, Japan, Poland, the Ukraine and Trinidad.

See, despite what Bush says, they can be rounded up and sent back to whatever stinking, third-world rat hole they came from. And you don't have to round them all up. Once word gets out that the round up is happening, and the employer penalties start getting enforced, they will start to leave on their own.

"But Ed", you whine...
"Will it take years to reduce the alien population down to something manageable?" Of course.
"Will Americans have to pay slightly more for goods, services, and chimichangas that illegals once provided?" Of course.
"Will the deported illegals just turn around and walk back across the border?" Not necessarily if we close the border and show that we mean business when it comes to deportation.
"Will it cost too much to attempt deportation of 10 million people?" Not when you tally the costs of them being here indefinitely, in terms of social programs, free education, free medical care, depressed wages, border community blight, the costs associated with alien crime, and the societal costs of 20million completely unassimilated foreigners demanding that we change our culture to accomodate theirs...all while paying almost nothing in taxes.