The Illegal Aliens in the Cellar

Illegal Aliens have been in the news again. And as has become usual, one of the questions is whether or not to offer them amnesty. This time Newt Gingrich is the one who has suggested partial amnesty. He denies it, but in permitting people to stay in the country because they have been here a long time, he has proposed exactly that.
One of the reasons habitually proffered for making such exceptions is that it is impossible to send all of the illegals back to their homelands. With an estimated eleven to twelve million residing here, it is alleged that the logistics of such a roundup are unworkable.
The specter that is raised is of an army of immigration agents spreading out across the nation to hunt down helpless old ladies and children as they cower in someone’s cellar seeking to avoid capture. It is as if an American-made Gestapo will be necessary to get the job done.
In fact, this is just a scare tactic of those who wish to promote citizenship for lawbreakers. Whether they are Democrats who hope to gain more Hispanic votes or Republicans seeking cheap labor, the bottom line is that they do not wish to enforce our laws against unauthorized immigration.
But herein lies the secret of the humane control of our borders. It is all about enforcing the law. If we take our own regulations seriously and apply them when they are relevant, the problem can be solved.
Two things are necessary in order to bring the flood of undocumented aliens to a halt. The first is to close the border. Whether this involves a fence or hiring more border patrol agents, before we send illegal immigrants back we must cut off the flow of new ones. If do not, we will be doing nothing other than empting the pool with one hand while refilling it with the other.
The second requirement is to cut off the magnet. As long as there are significant benefits to be derived from sneaking over the border, people will continue to do so. They will risk being caught because the rewards outweigh the potential punishment.
Unfortunately it is even more difficult to remove this lure than to interdict the flow of non-citizens. One way to get at this is to punish employers who hire undocumented workers. If we make it unprofitable to flout the law, they may decide to obey it. As a result, the jobs that illegals hope for will no longer be available to them.
But a second strategy for removing the attraction is to make it less comfortable to reside in this country. If the costs of doing so are substantially greater than leaving, reasonable people may decide it is time to go home.
This is why it is important to deport the illegals found living within our country. People must know that if they are discovered, the law will be enforced. They must be made to feel insecure. Only if they are, are they likely to conclude that evading detection is not worth the effort.
But there is no need for a heartless roundup. All that is necessary is to extradite those individuals found to be here illegally as they are encountered in the ordinary course of business. We don’t require cattle cars filled with desperate souls headed to the border. All we need is one individual after another obliged to leave and then prevented from returning.
The trick is to have a Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of every illegal immigrant. If they fear that their turn to be ejected will be next, they may voluntarily decide it is best to return from whence they came.
This strategy is comparable to the one that Rudy Giuliani use to slash New York City’s crime rate. By enforcing the laws, even the trivial ones, he sent potential criminals a message. They were essentially told that they would not be given a free pass and hence should think twice before they decided to do wrong.
The same holds true for illegal immigrants. If we treat the laws against entering this country illegally as if they are trivial, they will be regarded as trivial. But if we take them seriously—which means imposing the appropriate sanctions—they are apt to be regarded as serious.
Legal immigration ought to be welcomed, but the illegal sort should remain illegal—or else we are just playing games. It is therefore time for us to decide what we truly believe.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University