http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=1383

Immigration Policy: It’s the Incentives, Stupid.
Posted by: Jon Henke on Monday, March 14, 2005

McQs post on the lax approach to border security gives me an opportunity to point out the weakness of the plans that have been offered so far. We're not just ignoring our borders, we're making policies to codify that problem, and poor arguments to excuse them. Case in point, the Weekly Standard, in which Tamar Jacoby recently wrote...

Just ask experienced agents like Lee Morgan: Cutting off illegal immigration would require thousands more men on the border, routine sweeps in every city, roadblocks, roundups, massive deportations, a national ID card, and more.

Nonsense. And coming from a magazine that advanced the "we can't stop all of them forever, so we have to do something about the root causes" argument for war in Iraq, I find this particularly weak. It's true that a catch them after they've gotten here tactic would be as effective against illegal immigration as it is in the War on Drugs. After all, they're willing to die to get here, and we're not willing to die to keep them out. Advantage: illegal immigrants!

But that's a strawman. The key to dealing with illegal immigration is to eliminate the incentives that make them so anxious to come here, by cracking down on the businesses who hire illegal immigrants under the table. It takes two to Tango, but we don't seem to take any interest in the US half of that illegal immigration problem.

But, Jacoby argues, the new Bush policy would solve that incentive problem...

A new, more realistic policy would be much easier to enforce. ... The idea is not to expand the total number of immigrants who enter the country each year, merely to provide those who are coming anywayâ€â€