Enforcement at Work

IS immigration enforcement effective? Ask the New York Times: “Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of the early 2000s, which harmed countless lives, wasted billions of dollars and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values.” An enforcement program that can move the Times to such a display of righteous indignation must be doing something right.

But you don’t need to read between the lines to see what’s happening on the immigration front. Proof that our belated efforts against illegal immigration are bearing fruit is piling up by the day. Combined federal, state, and local initiatives are demonstrating that the strategy of attrition through enforcement-reducing the illegal population over time, largely through self-deportation rather than mass roundups-actually works.

About the Author

Mark Krikorian

Mark Krikorian is the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

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IS immigration enforcement effective? Ask the New York Times: “Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of the early 2000s, which harmed countless lives, wasted billions of dollars and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values.” An enforcement program that can move the Times to such a display of righteous indignation must be doing something right.

But you don’t need to read between the lines to see what’s happening on the immigration front. Proof that our belated efforts against illegal immigration are bearing fruit is piling up by the day. Combined federal, state, and local initiatives are demonstrating that the strategy of attrition through enforcement-reducing the illegal population over time, largely through self-deportation rather than mass roundups-actually works.