President Trump’s on-again, off-again worksite enforcement raids are back on.
Last week, the president had handed down a directive telling ICE to ease off raids involving agriculture, hotels, and restaurants. This cessation would have come immediately after these raids were getting started in earnest.
This decision was entirely arbitrary. Why not construction? Why not meatpacking? As with the tariffs, the effect was to put an enormous amount of discretionary power in Trump’s hands and also put a premium on effective lobbying; the ag industry had a highly influential advocate in Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
But restrictionists have friends in high places, too, and White House officials have gotten Trump to back off his backing off, at least for now.
We don’t have the wherewithal — neither the ICE agents nor the detention space — to effect a “mass deportation,” or deporting millions of illegal aliens in short order. Also, the vast majority of illegal immigrants aren’t gang members who are going to get picked up in targeted raids. So, worksite enforcement serves an important function. It demonstrates that it’s not going to be easy to work here in the United States, which is the reason most illegal immigrants came here in the first place. If aliens get this message, there is a much better chance that they will go home on their own, or “self-deport,” reducing the number of illegal immigrants in the country without further government effort.
If the images of raids and family members of detained illegal immigrants expressing shock and dismay on TV have a deterrent effect — sending the message that this could happen to anyone here illegally — they also have a downside. They involve people who are more politically sympathetic than thugs with rap sheets, and they are inherently disruptive to business.
Trump has shown that he may have a limited appetite for both the potential political risk and the squawking from businesses.
Although it would be a mistake to declare a few favored sectors of the economy off limits to worksite raids, it is reasonable to look for other ways to shut down the market for illegal labor. As we’ve repeatedly said, the most powerful tool would be a mandatory E-Verify system, making it much harder for employers to hire workers with fraudulent employment documents. It is possible that the Trump administration could take steps toward E-Verify administratively, but it would be best for Congress to act. That will never happen, though, if a hardline administration on immigration won’t even advocate for it.
The administration should also put more of an emphasis on so-called Social Security no-match letters flagging potential illegal workers to employers and making them fear criminal liability if they don’t dismiss them.
Worksite raids need to continue, as well. Yet, it should be made clear that the employers — the managers and bosses who knowingly employ illegal labor — are the real targets rather than the illegal workers themselves.
In short, mass deportation isn’t an option, but shrewd, politically sustainable interior enforcement is.