Illegal Immigration from a Realistic Standpoint

According to the New York Times, the U.S. population has reached 300 million. Of that number, ten million are illegal immigrants, according to estimates by academic and government agencies, although Bear-Stearns investment firm analysts claim that the U.S. illegal immigrant population "may be as high as 20 million people." This means as much as 6% of our population may be illegal. Please note, I found this information after 2 minutes of internet searching.

To make living in the U.S. illegally not only a crime, but a felony is a very interesting proposition, considering it would mean putting 6% of our population into prison. How exactly would we arrange this? How much would this ludicrous idea cost? Well, I suppose we could just go into more debt to pay for this! How many prisons would need to be built to accommodate this? How many people would need to be employed at guarding and providing human services in these prisons? Of course, these people would need to be removed from the working private sector to do this. What effect would that have on our economy? Making these people into felons simply does not make any practical sense. The idea is not feasible. I wonder if George Bush spent more than 5 minutes thinking about this idea before he put it into motion. If he had, he would have asked these same questions to which there aren't any good answers.