Immigration Law

RICHARDSON SAYS BORDER IS MORE SECURE

By Greg Siskind

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has said he has seen significant improvement in security along the US-Mexico border. The Governor's statement is important because a key reason immigration reform was blocked last year is because many felt that enforcement should be addressed before any kind or legalization program was introduced. Over the last year, there have been significant changes. The number of deportations is up dramatically, there are anecdotal reports of large numbers of illegally present immigrants returning home (including a substantial drop in remittances), the amount of money being put in to enforcement efforts is up significantly, the number of employer arrests has skyrocketed, and so on. For those who claim that the government is doing nothing on enforcement, the recent facts certainly paint a different story.

The cynic in me says that most folks who argue enforcement first are really against immigration all together and they will never state their satisfaction that we are adequately enforcing the laws. So I don't know that the progress were seeing even matters as far as eventually getting them to agree to reform legislation. What I would like to see is for the enforcement first advocates to agree that meeting certain benchmarks is enough. Otherwise, we'll argue for years over when to move forward to the next step of immigration reform.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).