Texas Democratic lawmakers attack rep for calling ICE on illegal alien protesters

Although more disruptive now, to me that is balanced by the fact that the person has been unlawfully enjoying the benefits of living in the United States for the same period. They have been getting paid American wages, had access to American health care and education for themselves and their children, etc. Their children born in the US get to be American citizens, despite the illegal status of one or both parents. If I am continually depriving someone of money under an unenforceable contract (an ongoing civil wrong with a monetary remedy), the longer it takes to catch me, the more disruptive it is. I have spent the money, perhaps on non-durable goods and services. I still owe the money back. Like deportation, restitution is a remedy, not a punishment. That doesn't mean we shouldn't enforce the law once the issue is discovered.

 

When do you feel it a good time for enforcement.

 

That's a decent comparison. We also have a cap on restitution though. An individual or business can declare bankruptcy and not pay the full restitution. Sometimes certain assets can even be protected in a bankruptcy, such as a primary residence. And there is a path for people to emerge from bankruptcy and resume a normal life. Is there a similar cap on deportation where the remedy is more than the person can give? Is there a path back to normalcy?

 

Absolutely there is a path back to normalcy, after the illegal immigrant is deported, they can apply for legal immigration just like anyone else. It's similar to how someone who fails at cutting to the front of a line is forced to go back to the end of the line and wait their turn like they should have done all along.

 

It might be a jurisdictional thing, but I know in California there is no cap on restitution and it cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. Many people make monthly restitution payments for the rest of their lives.

Yes. Many assets can be protected in deportation, such as everything but getting out of the country.

The remedy in deportation is never more than a person can give (with the possible exception of a situation like the movie The Terminal, where the person's country of origin has ceased to exist). There is a very straightforward path to normalcy for illegal immigrants. They can return to their country of origin and apply to immigrate lawfully. There is no guarantee of success, but it is a path that is available. It has also been available the whole time they were here illegally.

 

Well, that there is a path to immigrate lawfully isn't exactly true in practice for everyone. There are classes of people who have access to one type of visa or another, and then a slim chance at a diversity lottery. This is part of the reason we have so many illegal migrant workers -- there is a market demand and a market supply, but no legal structure to give all the visas needed. But we can call that "no guarantee of success" even though it's a de facto virtual guarantee of failure. Moreover, once deported, that path is generally closed to you as a penalty for your unlawful presence.

That's not a real justification of unlawful presence, but I do think it's interesting to think so specifically about the nature of this infraction and the burden we're asking of illegal immigrants to fix it. You said earlier these immigrants have already taken their benefits in US jobs, education, healthcare, etc. I'd say the US has also already taken it's benefits in a cheap and willing labor force, and an expanded consumer base. If you want to do the meta-accounting on who paid who how much, you need to add our benefits to the ledger. Maybe even being deported in the end, it'd be 'worth it' to the illegal immigrant to come. Probably even without a deportation in the end, it was worth it for us for them to have come. The nativists would say no, but I tend to think it's true.

 

Some people can't have children of their own, it's not a justification for kidnapping an infant to raise as their own.

 

That path is closed if your are caught living here illegally and deported, but not if you self-deport before being caught. Some people will be allowed to immigrate, some will not. Some will be brought in on temporary visas and then given the responsibility to return on their own, to reapply for entry later if they so choose. The people with families living in the US will have an advantage born of their illegal immigration that those who did not break the rules will not have, as those family members can act as sponsors. Unless you are advocating for fully open borders, this does not seem like much of a rebuttal.

Certainly there are benefits to the US of illegal immigration. There are benefits to the US of many unlawful endeavors. Catching a drug trafficker with a hundred million dollars gets a lot of money into the hands of the US government. We don't let him go just because the benefit he has provided far outweighs and harms done by that particular trafficker. I don't see those benefits as a reason to ignore the law and allow those unlawfully present to stay. The country can change the immigration laws to allow fully open borders, recognizing those benefits. Until they do, we should enforce the laws we have on the books.

 

The bolded is great.

 

The problem has been that we have consistently not enforced the law on the books and these folks have made roots. Now that it's clear we aren't going after the "bad hombres", people have misgivings about deporting people who put in a lot of work in America and made roots.

I don't understand what you and yours' end game is? Can you please enlighten me where you see illegal immigration in 6 years?

 

The endgame is you enforce the laws that are on the books. Everyone that you can find that is here illegally is deported. Everyone that is here legally can stay (obviously). The goal should be to have zero illegal immigrants in the United States, just as the goal is to have zero murders, zero rapes, zero thefts, zero breaches of contract, zero nuisances, etc. It is an impossible goal, but that's what we pay law enforcement officers to do, enforce the law. The fact that they were allowed to violate the law before is not a good argument to me that they should be allowed to continue violating the law now. Every day they were allowed to stay in violation of the law is a bonus for them, not some dastardly penalty they have been suffering. It isn't as though they were unaware of their status while putting down these roots. They could have chosen to prepare for the possibility of deportation however they chose. If some didn't prepare at all, that is hardly the fault of the government.

 

Many people don't understand this especially privileged children of wealthy educated professionally skilled immigrants. They don't understand that their parents came from the upper class of their parent's country of origin and attended the best private schools in their country and received access to merit based immigration avenues such as student visas.

 

I agree generally law enforcement should enforce the law. I'd put an asterisk on that to recognize there are such things as unjust laws; perhaps they should be enforced from an organizational point of view, but it is at least morally ambiguous to do so. Ideally, you should not tolerate the perseverance of unjust laws. But that's what we've done for the last ~30 years. We took a shot at reforming immigration in the 1980s. It essentially failed because companies continued to hire illegal immigrants and we looked the other way while new immigrants came over to fill the demand. It was an issue in the 2008 election; Obama and McCain both wanted to do something about it. McCain lost and Obama's effort got steamrolled by Republican obstruction. The legislation on this should have been addressed a decade ago, but we've been frittering away opportunities and the problem only gets more intractable with the passage of time. The "just enforce the law" argument gets more ridiculous with every passing year. We're in this mess because we didn't want to enforce the law. The law was a bad fit with our social and economic realities. It is still a bad fit. Let's make the law something that works for us and we'll find the political will to enforce it. The liberal argument will never get traction until it concedes effective border protection. The conservative argument will never get traction until it concedes a humane solution to long-time illegals. And, we're going to get this problem coming back over and over unless we can find an honest resolution to companies' needs for a ready and cost-efficient workforce. So yes, enforce the law. But, first make the law something that is worth enforcing.