Illegal alien advocates maintain that we have only two choices to deal with the 11 million or so illegal aliens now residing in the U.S. Their choice is to give them legal status (amnesty) and – most of them insist – a pathway to citizenship as well. The only other alternative, they declare, is a costly and militaristic roundup of each and every one of the 11 million aliens. This is impractical and unacceptable, they maintain, as they paint a picture of jackbooted officers terrorizing communities.
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| During the Eisenhower Administration (60 years ago), those in the country illegally were deported. |
But open borders zealots are not the only ones on board with this notion. Columnist Charles Krauthammer, who says sensible things about the need to control illegal immigration, also buys into the jackboot scenario. Without amnesty, says Krauthammer, we will be “sending SWAT teams to turf families out of their houses.” Several presidential candidates also agree that amnesty is the only viable option.
Amnesty or mass roundups, however, are not the only choices. Another choice, far better than either of those, is what some call “attrition through enforcement.” It proposes a nondramatic but effective tightening of immigration law enforcement, with the aim of encouraging most illegal aliens to return home on their own volition. Another way to say that is “self-deportation.”
In the 2012 presidential race, GOP candidate Mitt Romney offered this proposal in a debate with President Obama. The president tried to mock it by suggesting it was a plan “[to make] life so miserable on folks that they’ll leave.” Romney should have replied that the purpose of law enforcement is not to make life pleasant or convenient for lawbreakers.
When laws are enforced (our immigration laws generally haven’t been for some time), violators get the message that crime doesn’t pay, and many of them will adjust their behavior accordingly. The U.S. got serious about immigration law enforcement in 1954. That was during the Eisenhower Administration, and in Texas the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) apprehended and deported 80,000 illegal aliens. That action, the INS estimated, prompted between 500,000 and 700,000 other illegal aliens to return home to Mexico. Self-deportation does work.
Today, there are two steps we could take that would effectively promote attrition through enforcement. These measures also would be less harsh than the roundups employed by the Eisenhower Administration. They would make it much more difficult for illegal aliens to get and keep jobs which rightfully belong to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants. Without good prospects for employment, many illegal aliens would indeed go home.
The first of these steps is making the now voluntary E-Verify system mandatory for all employers. This system enables employers to check federal databases to determine the legal status of new hires. The second step is for the Social Security Administration to notify all businesses of employees who do not have valid Social Security numbers. The businesses, unlike now, would have to cooperate with authorities in determining if those workers are illegal aliens.
Stronger measures, such as worksite raids, would be necessary too, but not to the extent that the jackboot critics claim. In any case, it is no cruel and unusual punishment to make people obey our laws and return those here illegally to their home countries.
Significantly, many illegal aliens already have strong inclinations to go home. They did not necessarily intend to stay permanently in the U.S. when they came, and they miss their families and homelands. Between 2009 and 2013, the total illegal alien population declined by 2.5 million. Based on the trends of 2009 and 2010, close to half of that number voluntarily returned home. (The rest either gained legal status, were deported or died.) From 2009 to 2013, however, 2.5 million more illegal aliens settled in the U.S. – no doubt encouraged to do so by the Obama Administration’s lax enforcement policies.
By stepping up enforcement, we could encourage a lot of people inclined to leave to make that decision, while discouraging others from coming. Over time, the total number of illegal aliens slowly but surely would decline.
This is the best of the options. It upholds the rule of law in a practical and reasonable fashion. The deepest hope of amnesty advocates is that most Americans and our lawmakers will never hear about it.