Steven Taylor hits the nail on the head in this Outside the Beltway article.  He correctly identifies the practical problems caused by short-term, pragmatic thinking.  Here's an excerpt:

[From this AP article] Farmers in one of Alabama’s leading agricultural areas asked legislators Monday to make emergency changes to the state’s tough new law against illegal immigration, saying millions of dollars of crops are at risk in coming weeks because of a sudden lack of hands for harvest.

Shockingly, simplistic solutions to complex problems are not solutions at all and, in the end, cause a whole set of new problems.  We need a comprehensive approach to immigration reform that actually takes into consideration the realities of the market forces at work that draw labor to the US in the first place.

(H/T to Paul Hsieh)