It is all about risk versus reward. There are two types of illegal border crossers who come across our borders. 1. Those looking for work. 2. Those who are in a criminal enterprise such as drug smuggling or human smuggling.

The way I see it we have a huge problem because we have a poorly designed enforcement program and a poorly designed penalty system.

I will give you a real life example. There is an illegal alien serving two years in Arizona prison who is from El Salvador. He is there because he finally got caught after three years smuggling people into Arizona.

He is getting ready to be released and knows he will be deported to El Salvador. When asked what he intends to do once he gets to El Salvador, he replied, he will go back to smuggling people into Arizona. Asked why? He stated because until he was caught he was making $5,000 per week smuggling people into Arizona.

It is worth the risk to him to do a few years in prison to earn 5K per week. He has determined the risk versus reward is worth a few years of his freedom. 5K per week goes a long ways in a country such as El Salvador.

Now, let’s look at the other type of illegal alien group. The group who comes here for work. What is their risk versus reward? Well, the reward is to be able to secure a job that pays substantially more then what they could earn in their home country assuming they could even find a job in their home country.

The US dollars they would earn in America will go a long ways in improving the quality of life in their home country for the family they left behind. There is the reward scenario for them. Now, what are the risk scenarios once they reached the US?

Risk scenario would be that if they are apprehended being illegally in the US they will be arrested and detained, and ultimately deported to their home country. Very minimal incarceration time and very little loss of freedom.

So what is the deterrent affect? Answer: None

What is the enforcement affect? Answer: None

What is the reward affect? Answer: Very High

Only two ways to reduce this illegal alien problem.

1. Have a very strong employer enforcement program that makes it extremely undesirable for employers to want to hire illegal aliens to perform work for them by making the risk versus reward for them extremely unfavorable.

2. To make it very undesirable for illegal aliens to want to cross the border illegally by making the first offense a significant criminal offense requiring mandatory prison sentencing terms of 5 years with no early release possible. Second offense 20 years.

You have to get the attention of the illegal aliens by putting forth the message on a risk versus reward the reward is very small compared to the risk of prison time of caught.

You have to be willing to make examples of some by having a strong enforcement program and having ongoing media campaigns going in the various major news organizations from the various countries.

Coming into the US needs to be a criminal offense and not an administrative offense. Catch and release programs need to be terminated and in its place real enforcement with real penalties. Sure the first year expenses to incorporate a strong enforcement program will be high but the long term will actually decrease as the message will be received that risk versus reward it is just not worth it to come into the US illegally.

Smugglers such as human and drug would get a life sentence with no chance of parole. They would see the risk versus reward for their personal freedom change on the scale they currently see and most in my opinion will not opt to continue in this criminal enterprise.

We went wrong in our immigration policies when we enacted laws at the beginning making it a non-criminal offense to come into the US illegally. We therefore made it a non-deterrent law. We then watered it down substantially by running enforcement program of catch and release without having any consequences to the violator thus only encouraging them to make repeated attempts to come into the country in search of a better financial life.

How many times have we read stories where a person was documented to have been deported 5 or more times? The federal government continued to treat it as an administrative offense instead of a criminal offense as called for under federal immigration laws. We reaped what we sowed.

It is absolutely the federal governments fault for allowing this to get so out of control and they actually contributed to this huge problem by their lack of enforcement and allowing politics to have influence over enforcement of our immigration laws.

Now it is their responsibility to fix the problem and the only way they can actually do it is to take the hard road now and go to enforcement of our laws and stand firmly against the political fall out that will come with it both inside the US and abroad.

States like Arizona would have never had to get to the point of enacting laws such as SB1070 had the federal government owned up to their responsibility from the beginning of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Illegal aliens who have been in this country for a long time would not now have to be making decisions to leave had the federal government been enforcing the laws aggressively and to the exact extent as called for under the Act.

We all agree we know why illegal aliens come to the United States. It is because of economic advantage they find here that they do not find in their home countries. The come here because they know we have weak enforcement of our immigration laws and that risk versus reward they have been on the winning side.

The final problem and solution is that for way to long the federal government has been allowed to operate their immigration enforcement program with a huge blanket of secrecy and discretion not known to the general public accept under certain circumstances where they feel it is to their advantage to release certain public disclosures of certain incidents and arrest. They have been able to avoid accountability to the citizens of the United States by not allowing citizens access to arrests and dispositions of cases so that citizens are not able to monitor when a person is on his or her third deportation under administrative conditions instead of criminal disposition as the actual federal law calls for.

Many states including Arizona have broad public access and disclosure laws that allow their citizens to be more aware if they choose by granting them legal access to most files without requiring a freedom of information request. We in Arizona have great access to many court records so we are able to see dispositions of many cases and determine if we find it acceptable or if we feel an injustice to the citizens have occurred, to be able to bring it to the attention of the citizens.

ICE and Border Patrol acting under authority from the Department of Homeland Security restrict access by various communication mediums such as Internet from US Citizens from being able to monitor arrest made and disposition of the cases so citizens can determine if they are following the law and the mandates set by congress via the people.

When I hear of various cases where an illegal alien has been deported numerous times it is always as a result of some criminal incident that occurred such as the illegal alien who was arrested in Edmonton Washington for rape of a US Citizen and it was disclosed that this illegal alien had been deported 9 previous times.

To me and many other citizens that is unacceptable and gives us a glimpse into the broken enforcement system and tells us that repeated catch and release deportation is the normal operating procedure by ICE. Our federal laws makes re-entry a criminal offense and a third re-entry makes it a felony offense but the reality shows us that that is not how our federal government has been handling it and they have operated with the upmost secrecy keeping most Americans dumbed down on this.

We need complete enforcement of our immigration laws with no exceptions and we need complete transparency by the agencies charged with carrying out our immigration laws and we need accountability by those placed into roles of leadership. We need to open up more access to records of arrest and disposition where citizens can see that their tax dollars are being spent effectively and that our immigration laws are being enforced to the maximum called for under the Act.

We need to completely remove politics from this and insist that our laws be followed or face consequences of removal from that position of responsibility. I believe we need to remove the appointment of secretary position and replace it with instead a hired director position that is accountable to congress as their boss and not to the President.

In other words a President nominates for the position but once confirmed by the congress only the congress can fire the person and not the President. That removes the political aspects out of it and makes it similar to the process we have for the US Supreme Court Justices where it is an appointment for life or until that person resigns or is removed by an act of congress.