The 3:10 From Yuma
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, August 30, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Immigration: Open-border advocates say there's no way to deport 12 million illegal aliens. Arizona shows that you don't have to. Simply start enforcing the law and most will leave on their own.

The law was signed July 2 by Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat whose state — with an estimated 500,000 illegal aliens — is the undisputed champion in unlawful border-crossings. It won't take effect until Jan. 1, 2008, but it already is having its desired effect, as large numbers of illegals leave.

The law made it a state crime to hire illegal aliens and requires all businesses to verify the employment eligibility of workers through a federal database. The penalty for violators is a 10-day suspension of their business license on the first offense and permanent revocation on the second.

"I would say that we are losing at least 100 people a day," Elias Bermudez, founder of Immigrants Without Borders and host of a radio talk show aimed at illegal aliens, told the Arizona Republic. That number is expected to balloon as Jan. 1 nears and the law shuts off the job magnet attracting illegal workers.

The Arizona Republic report notes that many illegals are simply packing up and going home to Mexico. Critics say they'll simply move to other states. But not if other states follow Arizona's lead.

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies points out that after the 9/11 attacks, immigration authorities undertook a "Special Registration" program for visitors from Islamic countries. The largest contingent of illegal aliens from Muslim countries was from Pakistan, estimated at 20,000 in 2000.

Once word got around that the feds were getting serious about enforcing immigration laws, Pakistani illegals began leaving on their own in large numbers. The Pakistani Embassy estimated that some 15,000 left voluntarily. They deported themselves.

Certainly the feds are doing their part with stepped-up enforcement of laws forbidding the hiring of illegals. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff recently announced a policy of more vigorous enforcement. Fines against employers will be raised 25%, and the department will expand criminal investigations of employers who knowingly hire large numbers of illegal immigrants.

Under the new policy, said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "is going to be tough and aggressive in the enforcement of the law. You are going to see more work site cases. And no more excuses."

On Tuesday, that new policy bore fruit. More than 300 agents raided the Koch Foods poultry plant in Fairfield, Ohio, after a two-year investigation for federal crimes including encouraging, inducing or harboring illegal aliens.

ICE agents arrested more than 160 workers on a range of charges including illegal re-entry into the U.S., identity theft, document fraud, Social Security fraud and forgery.

During World War II, the U.S. had a form of guest worker program — the "bracero" program — that brought legal agricultural workers to the Southwest from Mexico to deal with the wartime labor shortage. As Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., points out, by 1953 the system had deteriorated from a wartime necessity to a means of providing cheap labor.

In June and July of 1954, under President Eisenhower, a force of fewer than 800 INS agents caught and repatriated more than 50,000 illegal aliens in Arizona and California. The agency estimated at the time that more than 400,000 returned to Mexico on their own.

That success was repeated from July to September, when more than 80,000 were arrested and some 500,000 "self-deported" themselves back to Mexico.

So, it can be done. At the federal or the state level, when immigration enforcement gets tough, illegal aliens get going.