There needs to be a punishment for illegally entering the United States. As it is now, there is hardly any incentive for people to leave. They get caught? Long process to get deported (if they ever get deported) and then they just sneak back in again. It needs to stop.

I propose 1-year of hard labor for any illegal caught and found guilty, then deported.

The labor? Digging rainwater catchment basins in our deserts. Why? by creating a large amount of them we can transform the desert southwest into a less arid region. It will still be desert, but it would drastically increase plant life and wild life. Additionally it will enable the carbon capture of billions of tons of CO2 (sell it to the greens). It will eventually reduce the temperature in the region by about 1 degree F. It will recharge the ground water supply (as much as 60 feet over 50 years), help control erosion, and control flooding.

We'd only need to arrest 500,000 illegal aliens a year and set them on this task and it would be finished in about 10 years.

Many people will self deport rather than risk getting caught and being forced to dig holes for a year, reducing the illegal alien problem and the cost of deportation.

Within 20 year the American Desert Southwest would have significantly more wildlife and plantlife (closer to what it was before cattle ate everything and dried out the landscape). Believe it or not it used to be a major beaver trapping area, but as the beaver died, so too did their dams.

It might even allow for the reintroduction of beaver to the area; who are natural dam builders.

Thoughts?