Deterrence working, fewer illegals coming to US

Washington Post:

The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 8 percent fewer illegal immigrants last fiscal year than the year before, reversing a two-year increase in the historically volatile benchmark, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced yesterday.

Chertoff credited the drop of nearly 100,000 apprehensions largely to the Bush administration's strategy of deporting virtually all non-Mexican border crossers as fast as they are caught, deterring them and others in what had been the fastest-growing group of illegal immigrants. After quadrupling the previous four years, apprehensions of "other than Mexican" border crossers fell 57,144, or 35 percent, to 108,026 last year.

The total number of apprehensions in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was nearly 1.1 million.

"We have begun to see, for the first time, a significant turnaround in terms of the number of illegals that we are finding crossing the border," Chertoff said....

...

The arrest total does not measure the number of illegal immigrants who evade capture, experts said, and is affected by fluctuations in law enforcement efforts to catch border crossers.

...

Under the old catch-and-release policy in the summer of 2005, 80 percent of non-Mexicans apprehended at the border were let go inside the United States, pending their hearings, because of a shortage of detention space. But for the past three months, all non-Mexicans have been held pending expedited deportation. Word has filtered back to potential border crossers, who are less likely to try to enter the United States illegally, Chertoff said, and Border Patrol agents have more time to work on other cases.

...
Applying the rule of law will have an effect. Suing employers who hire illegals will also have a deterrent effect. Once strict enforcement is in place, many people here illegally will do self deportations. This dynamic effect from enforcing the law appears to be overlooked by those who claim you can't deport them all. The answer is you do not have to if they do it themselves. Instead of offering an amnesty, we should consider offering an opportunity to return to their country of origin with out arrest. This is a bargain with value, because it would permit them to make an application to return to the US legally. If they were arrested before going home it would be much more difficult for them and any subsequent reentry might result in felony charges being filed against them.

Comments

  1. BGGB4:17 PM

    You write: "This is a bargain with value, because it would permit them to make an application to return to the US legally."

    While I do agree with parts of your argument, I think there is a problem that many "send 'em to the back of the line" advocates ignore. Namely, that applying for visas while in their home countries can be a process that takes up to 10 or 15 years. That is not reasonable, or functional.

    I am all for immigration reform on a number of levels. But it must be comprehensive and it must preserve (or this case create) reasonable avenues for legal visa applications.

    ReplyDelete

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