Deportations alone can’t fix US immigration problems

Underlying the demonstrations and street clashes of recent weeks is a dysfunctional system of immigration enforcement that needs to be fixed. With a bit of goodwill — from both the president and his opponents — that shouldn’t be too much to ask.

To much public outcry, federal immigration authorities have been detaining unauthorized migrants at job sites, courthouses and other public places in recent weeks. They’re doing so both to meet the administration’s steep deportation quotas and because too many state and local officials are refusing to cooperate.

Although this strategy hasn’t resulted in a notable rise in deportations, it has created significant disorder. Anxiety has rippled through immigrant communities as job-site raids have picked up. Protests have spread and at times turned violent. Some attention-seeking politicians have attempted to interfere with law enforcement. Those immigration officers just looking to do their jobs are caught in the middle.

Amid all this, “mass deportation” remains the unapologetic goal of the White House. Politics aside, this is hopeless. Resources for the task are limited — Immigration and Customs Enforcement has only about 7,700 field officers nationwide — and practical impediments abound. Public support has already begun to erode as ICE officers are seen breaking up families and ejecting otherwise blameless workers. (The disastrous family-separation policy of 2017 offers a further case in point.)

Moreover, as the president himself has conceded, unauthorised migrants — like it or not — are deeply integrated into the US economy. Referring to farmers, he said: “They have very good workers, they’ve worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great. We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back.” In a brief acknowledgment of this reality, the administration halted enforcement at farms, restaurants and hotels earlier this month before reversing course.

In fact, the original instinct was right. It would be far better — and more popular — to focus on criminals and threats to national security. “Felons, not families” was the agreeable slogan of President Barack Obama, who deported many times more migrants than this administration has. Adapting this approach would both serve the president’s goals and mitigate the risks of the current strategy.

One option, which the administration has started to take up, involves so-called 287(g) agreements, under which local police departments alert immigration authorities when they arrest someone who turns out to be subject to deportation, then transfers them to federal custody, usually at a jail. More such agreements should ease demands on ICE while boosting justifiable deportations. Local leaders inclined to resist should remember it will also reduce community disruptions and economic harm.

Beyond such measures, a bigger rethink is needed. By now, Republicans should grasp that deportations alone can’t resolve America’s immigration dilemmas and that wanton raids are disrupting lives and businesses to no productive end. Democrats should accept that refusing to comply with federal immigration enforcement — or actively impeding it — undermines the rule of law, creates needless risks and amounts to political self-harm.

The best approach remains a comprehensive immigration deal, of the kind Congress has been trying and failing to enact for decades. Broadly, that should involve a path to legal status for unauthorized workers, stepped-up enforcement on employers, tightened asylum standards, and a more expansive and orderly system of legal immigration, including a guest-worker program.

That this is a boring and obvious solution should be a point in its favour. The current chaos serves no one well.