President Bush toured the Yuma Sector of the southern border on Monday, observing a new section of fencing and an unmanned plane that monitors the region. He told border officials, “I was most impressed by your strategy, but more impressed by the fact that it’s now being implemented.” We’re impressed too, given politicians’ proclivity to make a show of passing immigration enforcement measures that they have no intention of implementing.
The widespread demand for “enforcement first” has forced amnesty supporters to back tougher border security. As a result, fewer aliens are trying to cross. The number of people apprehended at the southern border is down by almost 30 percent over the past year; the number of apprehensions in the Yuma Sector is down by 68 percent. It’s a start. President Bush and his allies are trying to hold additional border-security and workplace-enforcement measures hostage to their other priorities: an amnesty for millions and a guest-worker program for millions more. But if conservative legislators are able to stop them, it might be possible to impose some semblance of order on the current chaotic system.
The early effects of the recent crackdown and additional resources at the border contradict President Bush’s insistence that the border can’t be secured without a large-scale temporary-worker program to reduce the incentive for illegal crossings. Reading from a different script, secretary of commerce Carlos Gutierrez explains that the need for “comprehensive” immigration reform has become more urgent — precisely because the raids on businesses that hire illegal workers have made it harder for them to find the cheap labor they rely on. Welcome, Secretary Gutierrez, to immigration enforcement.
Positive developments have come not just at the border, but in the immigration debate. It has shifted to the right following last year’s elections, in which successful candidates tended to tout immigration enforcement rather than amnesty. Leading proposals this year, including the president’s draft reform plan, have gotten tougher by including increased resources for border and workplace enforcement, as well as hefty fines and additional burdens on illegal aliens seeking legalization.
The fines — which, in practice, would almost surely be waived — are an attempt to disguise an amnesty that offers legal status to only those non-citizens who have violated U.S. law. If the proposals for increased enforcement were allowed to stand on their own — instead of being yoked to the amnesty and guest-worker program — they would enjoy wide support. They should be separated from the various amnesty bills and made the basis of a muscular enforcement-first strategy.
Is it really too much to hope that one day it might not be so “impressive” when the federal government enforces immigration laws?