What do the republicans really care about when they bitch about immigration

Certainly not "laws", or "legal immigration".

Republicans hate the law when it doesn't suit them (see judicial activism or scooter libby for ex), and they hate immigration on its face, because the notion of foreigners of any stripe arriving in america to compete with people already here, those people living under the imagined pretense that they came over on the mayflower and live in this country by divine right, never suits the reactionary right-wing. See history, just ask the irish, jews, italians, chinks, and green flying saucer people.

Ask the blacks beginning about 1865. Before that don't ask them, because they were MORE than welcome to come over and compete with whites for all those cotton-pickin jobs the whites decided for whatever reason not to do for free.

What the right wing wants, more than anything, is a tangible monument to their racism. A great big thick concrete wall of China with gun turrets mounted abundantly, one that entraps the dirty impure non-whites in their squalor a la Escape From New York.

An iconoclastic Statue of America.

When the right berates the arguments of the left and middle regarding modest immigration policy, they always do so in regard to cost, efficacy, or urgency. But none of those factors matter when they talk about their wall with that gleam in their eyes. It's all wall all the time; no logic, reality, or reasoned cost analysis need apply for that job.

what they want is pure symbolism.

And when they get it, they'll pull up in their RVs and SUVs, pull out their beach chairs and beer coolers, and admire their handywork.

But of course, behind them, one hundred thousand little micro-economies across the entire southern/south west united states will explode, as if ignited by road side IEDs set off by angry illegals unable to show up for work.

And truck driver jobs, plumber jobs, being white trash jobs, right wing radio listening jobs - all of those healthy american jobs that white people will still do will be horribly affected. The economy may well implode, leading to a recession no tax-cutting fantasy will cure.

It will remind me of when black people burn down their neighborhoods because of some racial impetus, after which white people always feel justified in declaring their own racial superiority. "Look at those animals burning down their shopping districts. No wonder we're racist!"

Are we keeping them out or locking ourselves in?

Who cares about that philosophical shit when hate is so damn satisfying.

I want to buy a little plastic model of my hate when I visit the border on vacation.