The single most dishonest argument that proponents of open borders and amnesty make is that we have to round up every illegal immigrant to get rid of them. That's not true at all. To the contrary, if we go after the employers who are hiring them, that will take us most of the way towards a solution. This article is just more proof that when the jobs dry up, the illegals will go home,

In this case, cold, hard statistics don't tell the story.

"I am not aware of anyone who would track that locally," said Glen Solier, business development specialist for the Lee County Department of Economic Development.

"Those people are off the grid. Undocumented," said Susanna Patterson, economic analyst for the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.

But the oh-so-human snapshots of everyday living are revealing.

Like a weekend soccer league down from 32 teams to 25 because more than 100 players have had to leave.

Or a church that has cut two Sunday services to one because about 200 former members have returned to their homeland.

Or the western-wear clothier who gave up one of his three shopping center units and said business is off by 40 percent because customers are gone.

...Unemployment in the Fort Myers-Cape Coral region has risen this past year, from 2.7 percent to 6.3 percent.

Many of the lost jobs are in construction, which has been put on hold as the sluggish market struggles with a glut of unsold houses.

Because many Hispanic construction workers are believed to be illegal immigrants, because construction and agricultural workers are a mobile population anyway, because many are single with families back in their native lands, and because their leaving was often spur-of-the-moment, no governmental or social service agency is keeping accurate records of this exodus.

Lee County School District reported a loss of Hispanics in all grades totaling 388 pupils through January of this school year - this after growing by almost 3,000 Hispanic students a year earlier.

...The Rev. Rafael Santiago of the First Spanish Church of God at Ballard Road and Ortiz Avenue also is optimistic.

His congregation was made up largely of Guatemalans, a staple in the construction industry. Many have gone home.

He's down about 200 members, cutting from two Sunday services to one. But the church goes on with 170 to 200 people, and Santiago is a stalwart.

"Nobody stops the work of the Lord," he said. "Nobody."

Juran Romero organized a soccer league made up mostly of Mexicans. He has had 20 players each on his teams, but he's down to eight teams - about 160 players.

"We have had to cancel games because we didn't have enough players," he said. He figures the Hispanic population has dropped by 20 percent in the Bonita Springs area.

Martha Vivas, director of the Hispanic program at the Bonita Catholic Charities office said about 50 of her former clients are gone.

"In a lot of families, the children are citizens because they were born in the United States so they stay here with their mothers and the fathers have gone elsewhere to find work," she said.

If even the Bush administration's meager efforts at illegal immigration enforcement along with a minor job slump could produce results like these, think about how much of a difference serious enforcement of our laws would make if only we had someone willing to really crack down.