I recently came across a rebuttal to the (my and others’) oft-stated opinion that the nation’s immigration laws and system are dysfunctional and broken. The rebuttal was, in short, “the laws are fine, they just need to be enforced.” Sounds good, at least at first blush. After all, what we’re witnessing right now appears at least outwardly to be an abandonment of enforcing the law of the land in favor of stunts for political gain (not having read too much beyond Drudge headlines on the issue, I am desisting from laying down a firm opinion for now).
Contemplate, however, that illegal immigration is not a new phenomenon, nor is it a new problem. Estimates vary, but one source puts the illegal population at 3 million in 1980, 8.5 million in 2000, 12 million in 2007, and 11 million a year or two ago. Major immigration reform legislation, the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, was enacted in 1986. It included new regulations on employers’ hiring practices and offered a path to citizenship (aka amnesty). Since the enactment of that law, the nation has been under the governance of every permutation of Republican vs Democratic President and Congress. The illegal population has grown steadily after the 1986 amnesty knocked the number down under every combination of President and Congress since.
So, either we are witnessing consistently inadequate enforcement of immigration law over the past quarter century by a long list of politicians from both parties, or current immigration law doesn’t work. In contemplating which of these two choices is more likely correct, consider as a parallel the use of illegal drugs in the nation. Most of the major illegal drugs in the nation have been illegal since at least the 1930s, and President Nixon declared a “War on Drugs” in 1971. Over 40 years later, illegal drugs remain easily accessible to anyone with only slight risk. Do we blame inadequate enforcement, or do we conclude that the laws themselves don’t work? As you might guess, I strongly lean towards the latter.
It is not my intent in this essay to address the broader immigration issue – that will appear here another day. I seek only to break down the argument that all we have to do to resolve the matter is fully enforce the laws on the books. Some will argue that there hasn’t been the collective will to do so. Lets assume for a moment that this collective will arises in sufficient vehemence to prompt political action, that this or the next president goes on a full-on blitz against illegal immigration, enforcing every existing law to the letter and devoting massive resources to rounding up and deporting every illegal in the nation. What happens when that blitz is done? What if the collective will changes again, and becomes more like that of the 90s and 00s? Certainly, if it’s happened before, it can happen again. Since the laws haven’t been changed, since all that’s happened is hard enforcement of existing laws, the things that prompted millions to risk coming into the nation illegally haven’t been addressed. Market forces are as inexorable as the tide, and for millions to have acted as they did, there must be supply and/or demand pressures at play.
Going back to the illegal drug example, it’s evident that all the laws on the books haven’t done away with people’s interest in recreational drugs. Even setting stiffer punishments has only served to load up the prisons, and there are finally tentative acknowledgments that, at least in the case of marijuana, laws need to be changed. The same is true with immigration. The current system doesn’t work, because it doesn’t adequately address the supply side (foreign-born who want to come here, to work, to hop on the gravy train, to escape misery or persecution, etc) or the demand side (employers who aren’t able to fulfill their needs from the pool of those here legally, politicians who want constituents of certain flavors, etc). The range of potential solutions to these supply and demand pressures is broad, and people of different minds and different philosophies will disagree strongly on what the proper mix is. One thing is for certain, however. Merely enforcing existing laws is not a permanent solution. It may not even be a temporary one.
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