Media:

The poll sets up a path to citizenship, border security, and workplace enforcement as discreet items when none would work without the others. If we still have 12 million undocumented folks outside the system, border and workplace enforcement fail because their is too big a crowd to melt into -- and mass deportation or driving people out over time will never happen. Ever. Likewise, if we legalize without ramping up enforcement, we'd be repeating the mistake of 1986 which was a bandaid, not a solution.

We need all three, plus a legal way for people to come that reduces the incentive to come illegally in the first place. Since most people cannot come legally, or at least can't in the span of the next 7-10 years, they come illegally, which is bad for them and bad for us.

If we can get the deportation-only minority out of the way, place legal immigration as the centerpiece, then the enforcement we do will work because it will be enforcing a rational system, not one at odds with the rational behavior of both the immigrants and the employers and societies here that lure them. But we have to get the folks fired up about 'send them home' and 'seal the borders' -- neither of which will happen -- out of the way so the rest of us can make progress towards controlling and regulating immigration.

Posted by Media | May 1, 2008 2:12 PM