Immigration Policy

Everyone is up in arms about illegal immigration, and many about immigration of any sort. For the moment I am simply putting up some observations and facts, like the results of the national polls reported here earlier, shuffling them around in my mind and trying to come up with some useful ideas of my own. It is obvious that the most direct way to dry up illegal immigration is to dry up the demand for their labor, since that is why most illegals from the south come here. Yet here are some facts as reported today by The Washington Post (so you know it must be true!):

"Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics."

"The government's steady retreat from workplace enforcement in the 20 years since it became illegal to hire undocumented workers is the result of fierce political pressure from business lobbies, immigrant rights groups and members of Congress, according to law enforcement veterans."

If we are upset about illegal immigration for the good reason that it is illegal, then enforcing the laws against employers has to be a key to the solution. It is only now that the Federal Government is beginning to pay attention to this end of it.

I do not think this will go very far, however. The really big employers have deep pockets that politicians feed off. Remember my post showing how an editor of the Wall Street Journal feels about it? So I do not think much will be done in terms of enforcement, at least against employers. That being the case, unless something remarkable happens to the Mexican economy, there will always be large numbers of Mexicans (mainly) willing to risk anything to come here.

Of course, I could be wrong.