Gap between US left and right is growing

THE American immigration system is broken. At the top of the list of the problems: Around 11 million illegal immigrants, also known as "illegals" or "undocumented workers", most of them from Mexico and Central America and who reside and work in the country as thousands of illegals continue to infiltrate its southern border.

And then there are the legal and bureaucratic obstacles faced by high-tech companies, like Microsoft and Google, as they try to recruit highly educated and talented people from foreign countries like India to come to the United States and work for them.

Very few people in Washington and around the country will deny that America needs to fix its immigration policy. But years of debate in Congress have led nowhere. Everyone seems to agree that Washington should do more to protect its borders from illegal immigrants and that "something" should be done to deal with those illegal immigrants, but for years, Republicans and Democrats have failed to reach any agreement over the issue.