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35% Support Deportation of Illegals
About 60 percent of respondents said they favored the plan proposed by some Republicans in the Senate that would permit illegal immigrants who had worked in the United States for at least two years to keep their jobs and apply for citizenship. Just 35 percent endorsed the view of some conservatives that illegal immigrants should be deported. ~The New York Times
That isn't overwhelming support for deportation, but the support is surprisingly high considering how little it has been discussed publicly by anyone on any side of the debate. Restrictionists have avoided talking about it for fear of "scaring" away the support of centrist voters for more basic reforms (such as, say, securing the border), and this is probably tactically smart, while their opposite numbers (whom we would call, what, immigration expansionists?) regard deportation as an idea so implausible and alien that it might as well be from beyond the moon. But deportation is what a government does with illegal immigrants. I know of few other areas of policy where we throw up our hands and say, "We can't possibly enforce this rule, because we would have to enforce it so many times!"
But this makes the dynamic for the GOP this year tricky. They're alread going to suffer a major shellacking on every other policy front, but on immigration they have something their core voters care about a great deal (even if it might do nothing for them with the proverbial suburban mothers), and it is something they could use to get those voters to the polls if these core voters were afraid enough of what a Bush-Pelosi duo would do on amnesty.
It is not definite, but seems very likely, that this 35% supporting deportation comes almost exclusively from regular GOP voters. To mobilise their base on immigration, the GOP Congress would have to shift dramatically towards that position, even though the current leadership probably would never take up legislation even mentioning deportation. But a leadership full of Bush Republicans, weighed down by false memories of the "disaster of Prop. 187," would not even consider such a move. Which is why their losses in November are going to be worse than they have to be.
Daniel Larison | May 10, 2006
Comments
I have asked people who support deportation to come up with a feasible plan that would be supported. Deport them is a fine academic answer, but at some point plans have to be actionable.
Any plan I would consider acceptable would have to:
a) Accomplish the goal in a reasonable time period. Three years is the general marker I give.
b) Be able to adjudicate at least 90% of the illegals. I think 1.2 million is still a large number left, but a lot of the proposals I've seen wouldn't even remove 1.2m in 10 years.
As a bonus, I would like the plan to address adults who were brought here as minor children. I don't see anything particularly just about deporting someone who has only known this country. An additional bonus would be a plan to address those that have been here over x years. They have largely assimilated. (X for me is 5, but I'm flexible on the bonuses, because I haven't found anyone with a plan to accomplish the first two points.)
I think the first goal of policy making is that it has to actually accomplish what it is trying to achieve.
M.Z. Forrest | 05/10/06 22:55
To address a few of your points:
"An additional bonus would be a plan to address those that have been here over x years. They have largely assimilated. (X for me is 5, but I'm flexible on the bonuses, because I haven't found anyone with a plan to accomplish the first two points.)"
I'm not sure that I agree with 5 years as being a reasonable benchmark for assimilation. I would offer X in terms of generations as being a far more reasonable measures. Besides that, how can one even begin the process of assimilation if one's first act of doing so is to break the laws of the adopted country? I can't imagine that the lives of most illegals beyond that offer much chance for any real assimilation -- being in this country illegally, and very likely being at the mercy of whatever employer paid to get you here or took advantage of you once you were here -- does not really provide an opportunity to become truly engaged in the new culture; rather, it would seem to create pockets of communities who cannot effectively assimilate because they would be afraid to be caught, or because they're being paid a pittance and must live in tenements with other illegal workers, which does nothing more than reinforce the native culture.
I don't believe it is until at least a second generation that you can really describe anything resembling true assimilation, even under the best circumstances.
"As a bonus, I would like the plan to address adults who were brought here as minor children."
This, I admit, is a problem for me as well. On the one hand, you would seem to be right about it not being just to deport someone who did not break our laws of their own volition. On the other hand, continuing to grant amnesty to the children of illegals still leaves open a huge gap in the borders. It would not seem just, either, to break up families - we aren't going to send the parents home and keep the kids, are we? - so offering an exception would seem to do little for current illegals or future families who manage to make it across the border -- so long as you have a child, you get a Get Out Of Jail Free card. If anything, offering this kind of exception may have the effect of encouraging fathers who may now be crossing the border to work and send money to their families back home, to actually bring their families with them. It may seem heartless, but I really couldn't see a way to avoid the "injustice" of sending the children home, too. Though, given my comments above as to assimilation, I wouldn't imagine that the children will have become sufficiently American that returning home would be like going to a completely foreign land.
All that said, I realize this doesn't really answer your question of offering a plan; I merely wanted to note that I disagree with the caveats that you suggest would be necessary for a successful deportation plan.
Jeremy Holmes | 05/11/06 08:17
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