While it is encouraging to see the Trump administration shut down the southern border and deport a few plane loads of violent, gang-affiliated illegal aliens, it is a drop in the proverbial bucket. There are, by most conservative estimates, between 20 and 30 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. If the Trump administration were to deport 10,000 per week, it would take over thirty-eight years to deport them.
Judging by the federal judiciary’s activism since Trump assumed office, we can expect legal challenges to each and every deportation order. With this in mind, we could double the time expected to deport the illegal immigrants and project a finish line in about 76 years. Since this time period exceeds the life expectancy of nearly every person alive in the country today, perhaps it would be most prudent to wait for the illegal aliens to die.
But there is a better way: enforce existing law, and it has the future of making sure the illegal immigrants will deport themselves.
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In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which then-Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (D-MA) had shepherded through Congress. The bill, negotiated between the Democrats in Congress and the Reagan administration, legalized three million illegal immigrants. In exchange for the Democrats receiving a pathway for three million new voters, the Democrats agreed to close the border and (this is the important part) to outlaw employing illegal immigrants.
It surprised no one that this did not work, and illegal immigration continued.
Ten years later, in an ironic reversal, a Democrat sat in the Oval Office and a Republican was Speaker of the House. Speaker Newt Gingrich guided the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) through Congress, and President Clinton signed it into law in 1996.
This legislation created a federal resource for employers to verify the work eligibility of employees called E-Verify. It is a simple, easy-to-use online verification tool for employers to screen job applicants using the information provided on the applicants’ I-9 form. The problem, however, is that employers do not use it. The legislation created it, but it does not mandate it.
Employers in many industries, such as construction, hospitality, landscaping, retail, and maintenance, know it is against the law to employ illegal immigrants, but they also know that there is no enforcement. More importantly, there is no will to enforce.
If the Trump administration, along with state and local agencies, enforced existing labor laws, the millions of illegal immigrants would become a flood of emigrants.
Prosecution need not be universal to be effective. If the federal government were to investigate and prosecute a few dozen employers in each state, it would have a powerful impact on each industry. If the government had the resources to investigate and prosecute hundreds (thousands) of people involved in the January 6th protest, they have the resources to investigate illegal employers.
A program of enforcing existing law would be disruptive and would need to be phased in over a period of four to eight years. The government could initiate enforcement in a single industry, as, for example, construction (disclosure: my industry), and then shift to retail or hospitality.
It is likely that wages will rise for blue-collar workers, and this will probably be inflationary in the short term. Over time, the economy will adjust to higher wages and will benefit from higher productivity and tax revenue.
As the employment landscape currently exists, a large proportion of illegal workers do not pay state and federal withholding taxes, and their employers do not pay employer taxes or insurance. Thus, the burden for services such as schools, hospitals, prisons, police, fire, and all the things a community needs are passed on to legal employers and employees.
There are two magnets that drive immigration: jobs and public benefits. If the administration cuts off employment opportunities, it must also cut off public benefits; no more free housing, cell phones, debit cards, healthcare, and all the swag that the Biden administration provided. Instead, provide an airline ticket to a country of the illegal immigrant’s choice (provided that the destination country is willing to accept them). If the chosen country will not accept entry, repatriate the immigrant to his or her country of origin.
The two largest obstacles to this proposed program are time and Wall Street.
Any program dealing with deportation, or even self-deportation, will require time, and our election cycles provide brief windows for action. Congressional races are every two years, and almost nothing significant can be accomplished in two years without a political will that transcends immediate practicalities. The compromises made in the “reforms” of 1986 and 1996 demonstrate how short-term political solutions lead to problems of nation-changing proportions.
Wall Street and the financial world do not want any program that could drive up wages for working men and women. The margins from which they siphon off billions in profits are carefully calibrated and easily upset. Wall Street has no long-term interest in the health and welfare of American workers. Similar to what we observe in the Tariff struggle, Wall Street can only see as far as the next quarterly profit reports.
Our only chance is that the Trump administration solidifies its coalition and sustains the political will beyond his term in office, and that the MAGA movement is durable and cohesive.
cboland7@outlook.com
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