USAFRet :
1. Making legal immigration easier
2. Making the penalties for illegals, both for individuals and the companies that hire them, much, much tougher.
I'll add four more:
3. Actually securing the border. This will likely involve the National Guard being stationed at the border and possibly the active duty military going into Mexico (with Mexico's permisson/assistance) to rout out MS-13, the Zetas, the Sineloa cartel, etc.
4. Mandatory proof of citizenship whenever anybody goes to collect any sort of government benefits, at the voting booth, and at other point-of-service locations when ID is usually asked for (hospitals, banks, encounters with police.) If somebody does not come back as legal, ICE gets a call and the person gets deported if they are here illegally.
5. Denying of any government benefits to aliens.
6. If you do immigrate here, you have to be a productive member of society until you complete the naturalization process or your immigration visa will be revoked and you will be deported.
That should solve the issue. The illegals here will largely head home since they won't have a reason to stay since very few will risk to employ them (#2) and they can't get any sort of gimme benefits (#4 and #5.) They're free to try to come back through the legal way but they have to pass background checks, an immigration physical, and then go through the naturalization process. My personal opinion is that we can't just do the current thing which is to give free welfare to anybody who wants it as we are already very broke with more than $17,000,000,000,000 in debt. . We also don't want a bunch of people in gangs and with criminal backgrounds coming in either. If you are an honest person who wants to come here to work, sure, but you have to actually work as we won't give you any welfare.