Mr. HANSON: The American tradition is that the immigrants come legally, they go through English immersion, a cultural immersion, and the second generation is clearly better off than the first. For so many people who come here so quickly and without knowing English, and illegally, we've overwhelmed the powers that we used to rely on to assimilate.

GONZALEZ: Hanson lives in California's agricultural heartland, the San Joaquin Valley, a region whose economy benefits from undocumented workers like Geraldo Reyes.

GERALDO REYES (Undocumented Worker, Through Translator): We pick all the crops. And immigrants that are documented, you don't see them here in the fields working, inhaling dirt. They think we're bad, but without us, who is going to do it?

GONZALEZ: Hanson, who advocates stricter border enforcement, says those who favor relaxing immigration laws fail to recognize the moral consequences of their position.

Mr. HANSON: They are the immoralists, so to speak, because they depend on cheap labor to do what they do not want to do. They've allowed apartheid communities to spring up in California where the people who cut their lawns, clean their pools, paint their house are here illegally from Mexico, and yet their own children will never go to school with those kids, they'll never shop at the same store, they'll never wonder where they work. It's almost as if they come in from Mars, parachute down, work eight hours, then out of sight, out of mind.

GONZALEZ: Illegal immigrants themselves are becoming increasingly vocal. In October, thousands converged on New York demanding legal status and safer workplace conditions. In Congress, legislators are once again considering bills long sidelined by the 9/11 attacks that would grant guest worker visas to hundreds of thousands of people now in the United States illegally. Immigrant rights advocates say such benefits are long overdue, considering what undocumented workers contribute to the nation's economy.

Ms. SALAS: It is morally suspect when you're receiving the work of all immigrants, that you really do benefit from cheaper products and just overall the service that immigrants give, but then not to see these individuals as humans, not to see them as people with families, with needs, with aspirations, hopes and dreams. That is incorrect.

Mr. MEHLMAN: The social costs of illegal immigration are enormous. It's estimated that it costs about $7.5 billion in the U.S. every year to educate illegal alien children in our public schools. And so we are taking enormous resources that could be used to provide a higher quality of education for a lot of other kids in this country and spending it on illegal immigrants.

GONZALEZ: Others would say these immigrants must be educated so they can be part of the work force of the future. As the national debate continues over the burdens and benefits of illegal immigration, some people of faith say that compassion should govern policy.

Rabbi DWORKIN: We talk first of all of civil rights in this country as a citizen. There are also such things as human rights. If a person is in your midst, they have an absolute right to health care. They have a right to have their children get an education. Again, we cannot punish the stranger, or the children of the stranger, because we don't like what the parent did.

GONZALEZ: The morality of how we treat newcomers has long been a national challenge, one that becomes more and more acute as the number of people in the U.S. illegally continues to grow. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Saul Gonzalez in Los Angeles.