Why Completely Scrap an Immigration System that is Not Broken?

Most of the provisions of the "Grand Bargain," the proposed immigration reform bill and its myriad proposed amendments, completely change our current immigration system which is not that bad. It is instructive to examine the most controversial provisions of the proposed bill and the focus of the public debate.

Perhaps the most popular issue in the immigration reform debate is enforcement of immigrations laws that would prevent illegal immigration. Conservatives are calling for more enforcement, more fences, and tougher penalties for illegal immigrants. However, there is nothing lax about how our current system treats illegal immigrants. If an illegal immigrant is apprehended in the United States he will be put in jail while he awaits a removal hearing. He may wait in jail for 6 months or a year only to be deported. In some cases, the illegal immigrant may be jailed indefinitely. This is often the case for illegal immigrants who do not have a country of citizenship or one that is willing to take them back. These immigrants stay in jail in definitely. In fact, some of the Cubans who escaped Cuba in the 60's are still in jail simply because there is no country that will take them back. Once the illegal immigrant spends some time in a U.S. jail he is deported to his country and barred from returning to the U.S. for 3 or 10 years. Conservatives who are proposing tougher penalties for illegal immigrants believe that the measures will deter would be illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. This position is flawed for many reasons.

First, the argument assumes that the illegal immigrants will know about the new tougher U.S. laws and understand the consequences of the law. If the immigrants do not know about the laws or do not understand them there will be no deterrent. Secondly, the argument assumes that would be illegal immigrants are not willing to risk the consequences of the new tougher laws. Most immigrants do not want to leave their home countries. These immigrants come here because their lives abroad are so difficult and desperate that they will do almost anything to get here. Why would any reasonable person believe that a group of people are not deterred by the deadly natural and geographic risks that they must overcome to sneak into the U.S. would be deter by tough legal penalties which they likely do not understand? (The region along the boundary is characterized by deserts, rugged mountains, abundant sunshine and by two major rivers — the Colorado River and the Rio Grande.) Thousands of illegal immigrants die every year in the desert, in the Rio Grande, and in the back of semi trailers trying to get into this country--I'm not convinced that a death penalty for illegal immigrants would deter them.

Conservatives also propose tightening border security by constructing more fences and hiring more federal border patrol agents. The U.S./Mexico border is 1951 miles long and spans across 4 states. The border is the most frequently crossed international border in the world, with 350 million people crossing the border legally. In 1990 the U.S. Army stationed troops along the border in an attempt to stop illegal immigration. The measure was effective in the areas of the border where the soldiers were present but the end result was that the illegal immigrants were simply corralled to the most remote and dangerous regions of the border. This resulted in a substantial increase in the number of deaths among illegal immigrants trying to enter the U.S. This also resulted in an increase of the average stay of immigrants who entered the country illegally because it became too difficult and risky to enter the U.S. for short periods of time to work and then return home. Any further increase in border security measures would likely only increase the incidence of these unintended adverse consequences.

Furthermore, we would be committing a substantial amount of defense and security man-power and financial resources to prevent the illegal entry of persons who mean us no harm. We would be better off allowing these people to move across the border freely and legally and focus our efforts on preventing the entry of terrorists and other individuals who wish harm upon this country.

Those who support these measures as solution to one of the current problems with immigration in this county would be well-advised to study the failure of similar policies during Reagan's War On Drugs.

A second major issue in the immigration reform debate is the effect of illegal immigrant's on the wages of our low-income labor force. In fact, leading economists believe that illegal immigrants actually have a positive impact on the wages of our workers. Perhaps more importantly, if these immigrants did not have to lurk in the shadows their employers would not be able to exploit their illegal status and pay them low and illegal wages.

The current immigration system is not broken. One has to question the agenda of those who are pushing for this completely new system rather than refining the current system. I do not think that we should discount the idea that this new proposed system is intended to redistribute immigration benefits to those special interest deem more desirable rather than the current system which gives preference to families.