Satya Nadella: DREAMers make our country and communities stronger

As to the “merit” argument: designing merit-based systems is hard. Merit is neither totally ordered nor easily perceived - see, for instance, any amount of research about the effectiveness of interviewing processes. (TL;DR: it’s really low; most interviewers make up their minds in the first few seconds of an interaction; without blind interview practices, decisions are often biased.)

To put it bluntly, I very much do not share that faith. I consider it rather more likely that any “merit-based” system instituted would be used to give the appearance of legitimacy to racial profiling in immigration policy.

A skilled thief could be described exactly as you have described an illegal immigrant. Plans ahead, "invests" in their own future, able to "prosper" with minimal assistance from the state. (In fact, assistance is explicitly avoided at times, it would complicate matters...)

Taking this further down the absurdity rabbit-hole, one could even suggest that a non-criminal lacks the necessary traits to succeed - companies should show preferential treatment to criminals, or at least certain types of criminals. (Who decides this? Also, in before white collar criminals.)

A lot could be said about the positive attributes of serial killers, if we want to go hyperbolic.

The history of immigration and of "whiteness" in the U.S. is a fascinating study in cognitive biases. If you look at groups that we consider fully American now (eg. Irish-Americans) vs. how we considered them when they first immigrated, it's night-and-day (except for African-Americans people, who were shat upon when they were first brought over and are still shat upon now). It's clear, historically, that we were mistaken in the past, and yet people still make the same mistake, probably because it is evolutionarily useful to consider yourself superior to other people and socially useful to do so in groups. Indeed, even in the most PC, liberal, progressive, colorblind, diversity-affirming circles, the same dynamic still plays out, except that the "other" in those cases is rural dwellers, or people who didn't graduate from college, or folks who live in the South.

I am not suggesting that illegal immigrants do well because they are criminals. I suggest they do well because they make sensible, long-term choices to build themselves a better future, and that people who want to do that and are willing to work hard within a society are a benefit to that society.

A lot of criminals do not plan well for the future. They repeatedly make bad choices, based on short terms gains that seriously jeopardise their longer term futures as they suffer the consequences of their criminal actions. Their crimes are frequently not sensible investments in their circumstances to build themselves a better future, but actually give them a worse future as they suffer the penalties of having attracted the attention of law-enforcement. They do not typically prosper; many criminals have low incomes and have damaged prospects.

one could even suggest that a non-criminal lacks the necessary traits to succeed

The evidence indicates otherwise. Non-criminals typically do better.

As an aside, it's interesting that I frequently see the argument "it's illegal" being presented against illegal immigration; when part of the argument against something is that it's illegal, rather than wrong or damaging, it's quite telling. Some people even lead with that argument; that the problem with illegal immigrants is that they broke a rule years ago by coming in without permission - not that there's an actual problem with what they're doing.

I disagree. An economy is not a zero sum game and adding people to it, especially people ready, able and willing to start working now is a benefit. Compare with children of indigents, who take up to twenty years to start being a benefit to other citizens. Twenty years! If the problem is people being drains on society without contributing, there's the place to start looking.

So illegal immigrants, criminals if you will, would do worse.

I understand the evidence indicates that's not the case.

Would you at least agree that not every illegal immigrant has a desire to become a contributing part of the county they are entering?

I would, yes. I can only go on the general trends; the general trend is that immigrants are willing to take risks and work hard to make better lives for themselves, wanting the opportunity to live and work within the civil society they're moving to, and illegal immigrants are too. All we have is general trends; there will always be individuals who buck those trends.

As an aside, to me you seem very fixated on the idea of "crime" being a bad thing. Perhaps this is a difference we have. For you, me accepting this crime is slippery slope; crime is crime, accept one, you'll accept the next. For me, there's no slippery slope; just because something is crime doesn't actually mean it's bad or damaging, and if a person's crime is wanting to work hard and contribute to society, building a better life for themselves, that crime is less likely to lead to crimes that cause actual damage.