The latest from the White House is that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is going to halt some deportation proceedings, and media outlets have reported this as though it will have a meaningful impact.
As I’ve pointed out before, the process of deportation is a shambles and a waste of resources. An immigration charge necessitates at least twenty forms for the officer, and hearings face greater than one-year backlogs. Then only 41 percent of defendants show up.
The ineffectiveness of the responsible agencies will continue because they lack an incentive to perform. In fact, the presence of illegals keeps their budgets inflated.
Even if they were effective, the arbitrary and humiliating legal process–and I speak from experience–hardly merits enforcement. Regardless, though, illegal immigration has already slowed in the past few years, on account of fewer employment prospects. Unlike immigration laws, immigration flows respond to economic rationale.
