Monday, January 07, 2008

The Deportation Albatross?   [Victor Davis Hanson]

It is easy for the Republican candidates to claim they are against amnesty, and, indeed, we all should be, given how the 1986 act only made the problem much worse.

But the devil is in the details. All can agree that should we close the borders (through fencing, employer sanctions, more patrolling, enforcement of the law, etc.), and should deport those with criminal records, and perhaps illegals who have been on public assistance instead of gainfully employed.

And perhaps we can even come up with a general sense that those who just arrived here a year or two ago, or even three or four years ago, should be sent back home. But what about those who have been here for several years, have been gainfully employed, never been on public assistance and are free of criminal records? What are we to do with these?

Rounding up several million (8-9 perhaps of the 11-15 here) won't be easy. I can just imagine some 60-year-olds in my home town, still at work in landscaping after 40 years, who have never been arrested, own homes, and haven't a clue what Oaxaca looks like after 40 years, suddenly put on a bus back there. So while it is easy to say, "I oppose amnesty in all its forms," note apparently how difficult it is for the candidates to make the next intellectually honest and logical corollary, "Thus I am for the mass deportation of all illegal aliens."

It is fine and good to talk of "attrition" by slowly and incrementally rounding up illegal aliens as they come in contact with government agencies and need various licenses, papers, statements, etc., but you are still talking about deporting millions, who are currently working and crime-free, rather promptly. The odd thing is that should illegal immigration cease at the border, the pool of illegals here, properly screened, would become static, and not be replenished, and, if the past is any guide, within a generation melt into the American pot.

So it seems that while "amnesty" is a political death sentence, so is mass deportation-the only element of the immigration debate that would play into the hands of the Democrats who otherwise lose big on the issue.

Far better it would be for the Republican candidates to talk of securing the border first, weeding out those who just arrived, have been convicted of crimes, or never worked, but then talking of an earned citizenship program, that has rather clear markers like learning English, paying a fine, and passing a citizenship test — while still working and residing in the U.S. If the border was secure, all of that need not morph, as in the past, into a rolling amnesty.

Bottom line: Republicans have to be careful that they don't turn a windfall issue (the Democrats are mostly open-borders and captive to the identity-politics wing of the party) into a mass deportation albatross.

01/07 12:40 PMShare