Having
suffered not one but several humiliating defeats on Tuesday,
Republicans are in danger of embracing “comprehensive” immigration
reform — which is to say, amnesty — out of panic. The GOP does need to
do better among Hispanics and other voters, but this is not the way to
achieve that — and, more important, it is bad policy. A formal policy of
refusing to enforce the law is not obviously the best substitute for an
informal policy of refusing to enforce the law.
But first, credit should be given where it is due: The
Obama administration, by keeping economic growth at anemic levels, has
managed to control illegal immigration better than most of its
predecessors. The Reagan-era Immigration Reform and Control Act
conferred amnesty upon some 3 million illegals in exchange for promises
of stepped-up enforcement at the border and in the back office, but the
sanctions never quite materialized. Even though some improved security
measures were implemented after 9/11, the Bush years saw a 40 percent
increase in the population of illegals, according to the Migration
Policy Institute.
Legal immigration, which is largely driven by our
government’s preference that the extended families of previous
immigrants be able to join them here, does not closely track the
fortunes of the economy. Illegal immigration, on the other hand, is very
strongly correlated with the availability of work. It may turn out not
to be a growing problem in Obama’s second term, so long as we can count
on the Obama administration to provide relatively few employment
opportunities for illegal immigrants, along with legal immigrants, the
native born, and everybody else not attached to the AFSCME or Big Wind.
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