Yesterday,
I presented my plan for reducing the flow of illegal immigrants by 80% by the end
of 2018. Now it's time to deal with the illegals who are already
here.
There are
an estimated 11 million illegals. There may be as many as 20 million.
The
low-ball estimate of the cost of tracking down all of them and then deporting
them is $23,000 per illegal immigrant. But as more of
them are rounded up and deported -- the low-hanging fruit -- the cost will rise
per deportee.
This cost
can be cut to about $500 per illegal alien arrested. There will be volume
arrests. They will all be low-hanging fruit.
Here is
how the program would work.
A SYSTEM
OF LOW-PAID INFORMANTS
What does
every illegal alien want? U.S. Citizenship.
What is
just below citizenship on his list of wants? A green card. He wants to be
legal.
I propose
a system of informing that pays in green cards that can lead to citizenship.
The
government makes this offer. The first illegal alien who identifies another
illegal alien, his country of origin, and his current address is granted a
five-year green card for himself and his family. He and his family members also
go on a preferred list for citizenship until the green card runs out.
If he
informs on two illegal aliens, he gets a ten-year green card.
There is
a qualification, however. To be eligible for this program, the individual
reporting on another illegal alien must not have been identified already as an
illegal alien.
We are
all familiar with this method of resource allocation: first come, first
served.
To be
granted a green card, the individual making the report must provide his name,
his country of origin, and his current address. If the person is not at this
address, he will not receive his green card. This will lock in place every
illegal alien who turns in another illegal alien. He takes a chance: the
immigration officers can find him. But if he moves, he will not get his green
card.
An
illegal alien might have qualms about naming another. But if he doesn't, and he
gets named, he goes into the database of illegal aliens to deport. He has no
protection from being deported if someone names him. He did not identify
someone else first. He who hesitates is lost.
This
motivation system is called the prisoner's dilemma. It creates a real
dilemma: "To squeal or not to squeal: that is the question."
There
will be a government-run website for entering this information.
There
will be a year of promotion of this website. The public schools will be
alerted. The kids speak English. They will enter the data. They understand the
Web. Because schools are paid in terms of enrollment, and since deported
students will not enroll, it is to the advantage of school principals to be
sure that any illegal family get its report into the database on the day the
website opens.
Spanish-speaking
churches should be alerted to the program.
What day
should the site open? I suggest May 5, 2018. It's easy to remember: 5-5-18.
The
announcement of the green card winners will be May 5, 2019.
Who so
long a wait? Because of the time costs of investigation, conviction, and
deportation.
VOLUME
DEPORTATIONS
The main
problem will not be a lack of names in the database. It will be the lack of
personnel to go out and investigate the identified people.
There
will be another problem: the jam-up in the courts for hearing each case. The
courts would have to set up group hearings. Two dozen cases would be tried at a
time. "Does anyone here have either a green card or citizenship
papers?" "No?" "Officers, take them to the buses."
"Next group!"
The
courts would be open 24x6. Sunday would be a day off.
The buses
would roll.
To where?
The Mexican border. Then they would stop.
The hard
part would then begin.
A MEXICAN
STANDOFF
The
problem is Mexico. Mexico will not accept these people. To the illegal alien:
"Where are your citizenship papers? What's that? You have no citizenship
papers? Well, then, where were you born? You say you don't remember?" To
the immigration official: "We do not recognize this person as a Mexican
national. We think he is from Ecuador. Fly him to Ecuador."
This is
the problem with every program of mass deportations. The Mexican government can
shut it down. If the targeted immigrant refuses to say what his country of
origin is, he can jam the system. It will cost a lot of time and money to
deport him. He and his family will have to be housed -- where? -- and fed. By
law, the non-adult children must be educated. Where?
If there
really are not enough resources to fund the deportations, then the whole
deportation scheme is political rhetoric, not a serious proposition. With my
plan, President Trump and Congress could easily show good faith on this issue.
But Mexico can easily veto it.
Eisenhower
ordered the INS to deport them deep into Mexico. Today, Mexico would not
allow this.
I don't
think most Americans have figured this out. How can 10 million or 20 million
people be deported to Mexico -- half of whom are not Mexicans -- at a price
the government can afford?
COSTS TO
THE GOVERNMENT
The
benefit offered by the government for this information is not a net expense to
the U.S. government: a green card. The recipients of green cards would then go
onto on-the-books payrolls. They would start paying FICA taxes. The government
would come out ahead.
The
tipster is here already. He is probably not going to get caught. He has been
here for years. His kids are in school.
Any
refusal to implement this program is not a lack of money to identify illegal
aliens. It is the economic inability of the federal government to enforce the
immigration laws.
The
savings will be immense per identified alien. The U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Service (ICE) will know who millions of illegals are and where they
live.
But will
this do the ICE any good? Mexico can block the deportations by bureaucratic
obstruction.
CONCLUSIONS
The cost
would be low per deportee . . . if Mexico cooperates.
There
would no longer be a politically popular justification for a national ID card.
There
would be no need to police all businesses with respect to hiring only workers
with a national ID card.
The voters would get what they want:
cheap, effective deportations of illegal aliens.
Legal
aliens would no longer face workplace competition from illegal workers who did
not abide by the rules.
If President Trump really is serious about
deporting illegal aliens, this system of mass identification of illegals will
be cheap to launch. But it would be expensive to complete -- very, very
expensive. The problem is the government of Mexico.
This is why the money must be spent policing
the border my way before they cross. Once across and into a city,
the vast majority are here for good. We have already seen this for 50 years. It
is not going to change.