To reduce illegal immigration directly you can either throw more money at the problem, or be more loose with the proceedures. The latter method doesn't really help incentives (since some innocents get sweeped up in the process, diluting the incentive to play by the rules)  When I hear the word "crackdown" that's what I think of - looser proceedures.

Matthew is quite right - the solution is to greatly liberalize our immigration regime by vastly increasing the number of legal workers we permit into the country, while simultaneously cracking down hard on illegal immigration, through the use of a wall and an increase in the number of border patrol and immigration officials.  The quibble I have with Matthew is where he says that deporting all the existing illegal immigrants would be "cruel and impractical."  Why?  Practicalities can be fixed through enforcement mechanisms (i.e., making being here illegally a felony; really going after employers who hire illegals).  And I don't understand the "cruel" part at all - what really cruel is to allow people to illegally cut the line, while people following the law have to wait in Mexico.  I mean, if Matthew is on a loooooong grocery line, and someone cuts in front of him, does Matthew say "sure he doesn't belong in the line in front of me, but it would be cruel to send him back to the end of the line where he belongs"?

What Matthew has wrong, I think, is that no matter how much you crack down on illegals, you can't "assuage" the incentives created by an amnesty.  And we've got to reverse the incentives here - the incentives have got to be that if you play by yhe rules, you are very likely to become a legal immigrant, whereas if you don't play by the rules, you'll likely never become a legal immigrant.  Amnesty just screws that up.

The proper solution, as I see it, has three parts: (i) greatly, GREATLY increase the number of permitted legal immigrants (we need as many immigrants as possible, so that, as Paul Krugman says, we can keep wages low), (ii) build a wall, vastly increase resources to border patrol, make illigal immigration a felony, crack down on employers who hire illegals, and (iii) deport illegals who are already here and tell them to get at the end of the line, where they should be if they had followed the law in the first place.

As Paul Krugman said last week, the biggest issue from an economic standpoint is less legal vs. illegal immigration, but rather skilled vs. unskilled.  We need a liberalized regime to attract more skilled immigrants.  We don't need a liberalized regime to allow more unskilled workers.  Unskilled workers compete directly with poor Americans and depress wages.  As Robert Samuelson writes in the WaPo, it is importing poverty:

What we have now -- and would with guest workers -- is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States. It stresses local schools, hospitals and housing; it feeds social tensions (witness the Minutemen). To be sure, some Americans get cheap housecleaning or landscaping services. But if more mowed their own lawns or did their own laundry, it wouldn't be a tragedy.

We need control over the borders and a conscious policy to shift the work that is done now by unskilled illegals into the hands of willing Americans.  It is a myth that illegals do the jobs that Americans won't. 

The most important consideration, as far as I'm concerned, is what is best for Americans, but poor Americans in particular.  Liberals rightly denounce the Bush tax cuts as a policy that amounts to a redistribution of wealth away from poor Americans and towards wealthy ones.  Here we have a policy in illegal immigration that has exactly the same effect and the standard liberal response is indifference.  Why is that?

The cruelty comes into play when families are separated; when someone is torn away from a life they have built here over years.  I mean, you're entitled to your opinion about immigration policy, but equating being deported with having to go to the back of a grocery line is pretty cold, man.

Even applying for a visitor visa is very difficult for most third country nationals.  Ever since 9/11, the embassies impose a steep fee for security investigations with no guarantee that a visa will be granted.  The process is both difficult and degrading as applicants usually stand in line for hours with no facilities such as water or restrooms and then face interviews that demand intimate details on the financial status and other cirucumstances of the applicant.  For example, female relatives of mine have been asked whether they are prostitutes.  The consulate officers have absolute authority and there is no appeal from there decision.  U.S. citizens would NEVER tolerate this type of treatment at the hands of civil servants.  Getting an immigrant visa is in most cases just impossible.  There is no line to get in. 

This country was built with English capital, Native American resources and (cheap) immigrant labor.  Shutting the door now to preserve local wages is counterproductive and would as foolish as closing the door to foreign capital.  The jobs will only go elsewhere.  Better to keep them here.  The economic activity generated by that activity creates more high-paying jobs as well. 

I mean, if Matthew is on a loooooong grocery line, and someone cuts in front of him, does Matthew say "sure he doesn't belong in the line in front of me, but it would be cruel to send him back to the end of the line where he belongs"?

It would be cruel if that someone paid for his groceries, took them home, and cooked them for his family.  That is a piss poor analogy considering those who move here to improve the lives of their families and their children are morally and ethically doing the right thing.  It may impose on us a bit, but I'd hardly expect them to follow our laws if we don't want to grant them citizenship in return.  It's sort of a chicken and egg thing.  

Instead, we should stop them from entering and setting up shop.  Hire more border police (but please no silly wall).  Punish employers for hiring illegals, perhaps by implementing a national id that must be verified within a month of employment.  If employers break the rule, fine them a lot.  And then increase legal immigration.   

Shutting the door now to preserve local wages is counterproductive and would as foolish as closing the door to foreign capital.  The jobs will only go elsewhere.  Better to keep them here.  The economic activity generated by that activity creates more high-paying jobs as well. 

This is just completely nonsensical.  Hotel maid jobs are going to go overseas?  Child nannies?  Farmworkers? Chicken processors?

There's hardly another issue out there that is so full of mythical economics.  It's just amazing.

Right. The illegal immigration phenomenon proves one thing overwhelmingly clearly: you can't expect to stay rich if your neighbors are destitute. If US workers want to stay rich, they should start figuring out how to make Mexican workers rich, too. One way to do that would be to use NAFTA more like the EU: subsidies and benefits for Mexican goods, on condition that Mexico meet some North America-wide standards of good governance. This approach has worked wonders for formerly corrupt low-wage European southern economies, like Italy, Greece and Spain. We need to North-Americanize Mexico like the EU Europeanized Greece and Spain.

This is just completely nonsensical.  Hotel maid jobs are going to go overseas?  Child nannies?  Farmworkers? Chicken processors?

 

I agree it is nonsensical. But I'm curious to know exactly what labor pool exists to fill these minimum wage jobs should immigrants not be there to do them?