Enforcement Challenges

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After the largest wave of illegal immigration in history (2021-2025), the Executive and Legislative branches will have to muster the will to enforce the law and close existing loopholes in order to restore credibility to our immigration system.

ReEnvisioned Enforcement

The United States has the largest legal immigration system in the world, issuing more than one million green cards every year. Yet hundreds of millions of people around the world would like to come. Congress could lower admissions to more traditional levels or triple admissions and overwhelm the nation’s natural resources and infrastructure, but no limited immigration system has any credibility without a commitment to enforcing the limits.

Arrests and Deportations are necessary, but not sufficient.

Interior removals peaked in the late 2000s at about 200,000 per year. If we double the record rate for deportations, it would take fifteen years to remove 6 million people (6-7 million inadmissible aliens were released into the U.S. between 2021-2025 alone). The U.S. government would need nearly four decades to remove the estimated 15-17 million people in the country illegally.

The key to reducing the number of people residing and working illegally in the United States is to encourage them to return to their home countries on their own. Yet…

The U.S. government rewards illegal immigration everyday Congress delays reform.

Any person who came illegally during the 2021-2025 border surge as well as any person who overstays a visa today can exploit loopholes in our immigration system to remain in the U.S. Their children are granted automatic citizenship, which sets them up to be sponsored for a green card themselves once the child turns 21. In the meantime, they can find illegal work from employers who don’t verify that their employees are authorized to work. Limiting automatic birthright citizenship, ending chain migration, and mandating E-Verify would close these loopholes and stop rewarding illegal immigration.

Stopping future illegal immigration has its own challenges…

We can track tissue paper across the country but have to guess if or when a visitor leaves.

Roughly half of all illegal immigration consists of people who entered the U.S. on a temporary visa and never left. The average amusement park does a better job than the U.S. government of making sure people leave when their time is up.

The government does not comprehensively match the records of when people enter the U.S. with records of when people leave. So it has to make educated guesses. Anyone who has visited Disney World knows the technology for a state-of-the-art entry/exit system exists. Congress mandated an entry/exit system in 1996. Yet it has never been implemented, even after the 9/11 Commission made its completion a top recommendation.

**It’s illegal to hire an unauthorized worker…but legal to never verify that authorization.**

There can be no border security without a secure workplace. We can sum up current workplace immigration policy in three words: Trust; don’t verify.

Word has gotten out around the world: Yes, it’s illegal to work in the United States if you aren’t authorized; but the United States doesn’t check. There is no greater incentive for people around the world to risk lives and treasure than this obvious loophole in workplace enforcement.