W's Immigration Fallacy (2004)

PRESIDENT Bush's proposal to legalize the country's 10 or so million illegal aliens rests on a fallacy: that immigration enforcement has failed to stem the tide of illegal aliens. Therefore, the argument goes, amnesty is the only solution to the illegal-alien crisis.

But immigration enforcement has not failed — it has never been tried. Amnesty, however, has been tried, and it was a clear failure that should not be repeated again.

For decades, the country's immigration enforcement has looked like this: a largish number of Border Patrol agents clustered at the border with Mexico, then a vast empty space beyond where illegal immigrants are home free — as if a football team had placed its entire defense on the line of scrimmage.

Roughly 2,000 immigration agents have been responsible for all interior enforcement, a massive portfolio which includes checking work sites, eradicating document fraud and alien smuggling, and apprehending criminal aliens. Their numbers are dwarfed by the millions of illegal aliens, the hundreds of thousands of employers who hire them, and the tens of thousands of counterfeiters and smugglers who facilitate their passage.

This dearth of enforcement resources has had the most dire consequences in the workplace. It is the lure of jobs that draws most aliens across the border illegally. The highest priority of immigration enforcement should be to disengage that jobs magnet by penalizing employers who hire illegals. The opposite is the case: A combination of inadequate manpower and weak laws has ensured that illegal aliens and their employers enjoy near immunity from detection and prosecution.

Currently, a mere 124 immigration agents are responsible for enforcing the law against hiring illegal aliens, according to the Associated Press. Only 53 employers were fined in 2002. An employer's chance of punishment for breaking the law, therefore, was a scant one one-hundreth of a percent.

But even were immigration authorities to get adequate resources, it would have little effect on the jobs magnet, because the government's tools for prosecuting illegal employment are so weak. Under public pressure to end the illegal-alien crisis, Congress in 1986 banned the employment of illegal aliens and imposed liability on employers who did so. It was a pyrrhic victory. The 1986 law (the Immigration Reform and Control Act [IRCA]) was emasculated at its inception and has been continuously thwarted in its application.

Here's how: A ban on illegal labor can work only if employers can reliably determine a worker's employment eligibility. Business and ethnic lobbies defeated worker verification in 1986 and every time it has been proposed since then.

What we have instead is a system of playacting. Millions of illegal workers pretend to present valid documents, and thousands of employers pretend to believe them. The employee merely needs to proffer, and the employer merely eyeball, any two documents from a dizzying list of 25 — all eminently counterfeitable — to establish the employer's compliance with the 1986 law. If the documents are not obvious fakes— scrawled on a matchbook with a red crayon, say — the employer must accept them.

In fact, if an employer looks too closely at a worker's papers, he may face a lawsuit for racial discrimination. Civil rights and ethnic lobbies made sure that IRCA included a whole new anti-bias bureaucracy: the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, which sues employers who demand clear proof of worker eligibility.

Having eyeballed the worker's papers, the employer is now virtually insulated from liability. He can be penalized only if the government can prove that he knowingly hired illegal aliens — an almost impossible burden as long as the worker has proffered some reasonable set of fake work papers.

It is this workplace sham that has guaranteed the onslaught of illegals into the country.

In trying to sell his amnesty program, Bush made a vague gesture towards correcting the sham: "Employers must not hire undocumented aliens," he said. "There must be strong workplace enforcement with tough penalties for . . . any employer violating these laws." This is meaningless verbiage. Unless Bush advocates a fraud-proof method of verifying a worker's eligibility — such as electronic checks of Social Security numbers — his new amnesty and guest-worker programs will have only one effect: The flood of illegal aliens will increase exponentially.

Illegal workers will still be able to proffer counterfeit documents to get hired, and even more will cross the border than before, lured by the reasonable expectation that in a few years, the U.S. will offer another amnesty.

The last large-scale amnesty in 1986 nearly sunk the INS. The barrage of applications for work papers, many fraudulent, overwhelmed the agency. Ethnic advocacy groups sued constantly to widen the eligibility criteria for citizenship, and under political pressure, the INS penalized agents with high denial rates. The results? Several Islamic terrorists got legal papers, and a new era of high-volume illegal immigration began.

Expect a worse outcome this time around. Immigrant advocacy groups are even more powerful, the numbers of illegals even higher than in 1986, and the Department of Homeland Security, now responsible for immigration enforcement, even more overwhelmed by its paperwork obligations.

Rather than granting President Bush his election year amnesty, Congress should give immigration authorities the resources and legal tools to protect the country's borders. It would be a novel experiment.

President's Radio Address March 25, 2006

"Comprehensive immigration reform begins with securing our borders."

"To keep the promise of America, we must enforce the laws of America."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060325.html

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. On Monday, I will attend a
naturalization ceremony here in Washington. It's always inspiring to
watch a group of immigrants raise their hands and swear an oath to
become citizens of the United States of America. These men and women
follow in the footsteps of millions who've come to our shores seeking
liberty and opportunity, and America is better off for their hard
work and love of freedom.

America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws.
And our immigration laws are in need of reform. So at Monday's
ceremony, I will discuss my vision for comprehensive immigration
reform that will secure our borders, improve enforcement of our
immigration laws, and uphold our values.

Comprehensive immigration reform begins with securing our borders.
Since I took office, we've increased funding for border security by
66 percent, and the Department of Homeland Security has caught and
sent home nearly 6 million illegal immigrants. To improve security at
the border, we're hiring thousands more Border Patrol agents. We're
deploying new technology, like infrared cameras and unmanned aerial
vehicles, to help our agents do their job. And we're installing
physical barriers to entry, like fences in urban areas.

We're also working to end the unwise practice of catch-and-release.
For decades, many illegal immigrants were released back into society
soon after they were caught, because we did not have enough detention
space. So we're adding more beds so we can hold the people we catch,
and we're reducing the time it takes to send them back home. When
illegal immigrants know they will be caught and sent home, they will
be less likely to break the rules, and our immigration system will be
more orderly and secure. We're making good progress, but we have much
more work ahead, and we will not be satisfied until we have control
of our border.

Comprehensive immigration reform also includes strengthening the
enforcement of our laws in America's interior. Since I took office,
we've increased funding for immigration enforcement by 42 percent.
We're increasing the number of immigration enforcement agents and
criminal investigators, enhancing work site enforcement, and going
after smugglers and gang members and human traffickers.

Finally, comprehensive immigration reform requires a temporary worker
program that will relieve pressure on our borders. This program would
create a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing
American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do. By
reducing the number of people trying to sneak across the border, we
would free up our law enforcement officers to focus on criminals and
drug dealers and terrorists and others who mean us harm.

One thing the temporary worker program would not do is provide
amnesty to those who are in our country illegally. I believe that
granting amnesty would be unfair, because it would allow those who
break the law to jump ahead of people who play by the rules and wait
in the citizenship line. Amnesty would also be unwise, because it
would encourage waves of illegal immigration, increase pressure on
the border, and make it more difficult for law enforcement to focus
on those who mean us harm. For the sake of justice and for the sake
of border security, I firmly oppose amnesty.

In the coming days, the United States Senate plans to consider
proposals on immigration reform. This is an emotional debate. America
does not have to choose between being a welcoming society and being a
lawful society. We can be both at the same time. As we debate the
immigration issue, we must remember there are hard-working
individuals, doing jobs that Americans will not do, who are
contributing to the economic vitality of our country.

To keep the promise of America, we must enforce the laws of America.
We must also ensure that immigrants assimilate into our society and
learn our customs and values -- including the English language. By
working together, we can meet our duty to fix our immigration system
and deliver a bill that protects our country, upholds our laws, and
makes our Nation proud.

Thank you for listening.

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