They have not had fair warning that we would kill them. Nobody has told them that they would be killed for entering the country illegally.
Setting aside that I think death is a far too radical punishment,
especially without a trial, it is in fact unconstitutional to suddenly lay the death punishment on them. That is called a
ex post facto law, and is unconstitutional for the federal government by Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution and for the states by Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution. Even if you suggest to amend the Constitution to allow this, there is
no way you could ever garner enough support to change such a fundamental part of our legal system.
Now that leaves all the future illegal immigrants. To make a law which allowed one to shoot an illegal immigrant without a trial would
also be unconstitutional. Every person, before he or she is convicted of a crime,
must have a trial,
even if he or she is not a citizen. Also, they may not be tried in military tribunals as long as civilian courts are available. Check
ex parte Milligan on that one.
Killing them on the spot would also be in violation of the Declaration of Non-Nationals (1985). You may want to read the document. You can find it
here. In case you are too lazy or busy, here is the most relevant excerpt. It is from Article 5, Section 1.
"
1. Aliens shall enjoy, in accordance with domestic law and subject to the relevant international obligation of the State in which they are present, in particular the following rights:
(a) The right to life and security of person; no alien shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention; no alien shall be deprived of his or her liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedures as are established by law;"
The point that I am trying to make is that it doesn't matter if you think killing all the illegal immigrants is best for the country. It is so incredibly illegal. Even if you think that's what we
should do, it does not matter unless we
can do it. And so, your argument is invalid.
Let's save some time here. Even if you amend your argument to say that we should put them all through trials (with the death sentence being the result), both the ones that are here and the ones coming in, it still doesn't work. As I said before, you can't do that to the ones that are already here. As for the ones coming in, it seems
very likely that any law saying that their punishment must be the death sentence would be ruled unconstitutional. First of all, the death penalty has been left for the states to decide upon. Forcing them all to adopt the death penalty just doesn't work. Secondly, even if that went through, it is likely that a majority of the Supreme Court would deem that cruel and unusual punishment. Even if somehow this became a legal reality, that would be a huge, time consuming, and expensive legal burden to add to the court system.
I know you weren't taking to me, but I just want to say I agree with these points. I too would like to decrease the number of illegal immigrants in this country, and recognize the damage that they do. Just wanted to make that clear.