Self deportation not a joke

Karol Markowicz:

In a Republican primary season overloaded with second-tier candidates and gaffes, lots of people seem to be watching the never-ending debates with an ear for the next laugh line. After last Monday’s Florida debate, they seized on Mitt Romney’s suggestion that his immigration policy, rather than rounding up illegals, would have people “self-deport.” 

“The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here,” Romney said. 

It was an instant joke; everyone was self-deporting. Rick Klein, senior Washington editor for ABC World News, tweeted “pretty soon I shall self-deport from my couch, to gather more liquid to drink.” Andrew Sullivan, hyperventilating, live-blogged that it was “a new Romney verb.” Roll Call’s Ryan Beckwith tweeted that self-deport was a “new phrase to me.” 

Later in the week, Newt Gingrich jumped on the Romney-mocking bandwagon, calling the plan “fantasy” and finding a way to work in class-warfare references to Swiss bank accounts, the Cayman islands and “$20-million-a-year income with no work.” 

But is it so funny — or new? Why would anyone self-deport? 

The answer is in the middle of Romney’s response: You’d self-deport because you don’t have legal documentation allowing you to work here. 

So the mockable, hilarious and unlikely idea is an enforcement of existing law. It remains illegal to work in America without proper documentation; that we collectively look the other way doesn’t, in fact, make it legal. 

The extremes don’t make serious arguments about “fixing” immigration. We can’t round up masses of people and send them home, despite Rick Santorum’s suggestion we do that because Mexico is “a great country” and “not Siberia.” We also can’t give blanket amnesty to people who broke the law to get here, unless we want to encourage millions more to do the same. 

Some paint Romney’s position as far-right because a version of it has been supported by more zealous immigration opponents, but it’s actually a fair compromise. Enforce the laws, secure the border and give those who self-deport a fair track to US citizenship.

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Actually self deportation has already been shown to be effective from Arizona to Alabama and in small towns in between who have made working here as an illegal difficult.

If you are going to control our borders you have to have consequences for coming here illegally.  Democrats off no consequences for those who come without following the immigration laws.  The consequence of that would be more illegal immigration as we saw after previous amnesties.