Border Crackdowns Won’t Solve America’s Immigration Crisis

More walls and police will never be enough to stop migrants from coming to the U.S. for the lower-skilled jobs the American economy needs.

By Hein de Haas. Excerpts:

"By 2023, the U.S. border enforcement budget had risen to $25.9 billion—more than double the budget of the FBI.

Yet none of this has stopped people from coming. Migrants are willing to accept the significant costs and risks of the journey because they understand that there are plentiful jobs at much higher wages for them in the U.S. It is an opportunity for them to radically improve the living standards of themselves and their families.

Over the past few decades, a combination of demographic and economic factors in the U.S.—increasing education, an aging population, the rise of double-income families—has fueled a growing demand for migrant workers in sectors such as agriculture, slaughtering and meatpacking, construction, cleaning, child and eldercare, hospitality, warehousing, distribution and transport. Migrants have flocked to such jobs as the supply of local workers willing and able to do them has shrunk."

"Ever-more restrictive border enforcement over the past four decades has . . . increasingly driven migration underground while making migrants and asylum seekers more dependent on smugglers (“coyotes”) to cross the border." 

"immigration restrictions have backfired by pushing temporary migrants into permanent settlement. Research shows that, the more difficult it is to come, the more migrants tend to stay."

"border militarization transformed undocumented Mexican migration “from a circular flow of male workers” going back and forth, mainly to Texas and California, “into an 11 million person population of settled families living in 50 states.”"

"Lower-skilled workers also can gain legal admission, mostly for seasonal agricultural work, through H2 visas. Those numbers have remained steady, averaging around 500,000 annually since 2013. But this level has not been nearly enough to meet increasing labor demand, especially for nonseasonal, lower-skilled services. It is exactly where we find the most acute labor crunch.  

There is a correlation between rising levels of border crossings and deepening U.S. labor shortages."

"without chronic labor shortages in the U.S., most migrants simply would not come."

"The same politicians—Republican and Democrat—who over the past four decades have repeatedly promised to “crack down” on illegal migration have turned a blind eye to the actual employment of undocumented migrant workers. The clearest evidence of this hypocrisy is the laughably low level of workplace enforcement in the U.S., where inspections and routine checks of immigration status and other papers would serve as the most direct deterrent."

"Since 1986, when employing undocumented immigrants was made a criminal offense, data from the Justice Department reveals that, nationwide, there have seldom been more than 15-20 prosecutions of employers a year. Fines for infractions have been symbolic at best, currently ranging from $676 to $5,404 per worker for an employer’s first offense, and these fines are routinely negotiated down."

"Experience shows that creating more avenues for lower-skilled workers does not have to lead to mass immigration. It’s easy to forget that until the late 1980s Mexican immigration to the U.S. was largely unregulated. It didn’t lead to mass settlement exactly because it was easy for workers to circulate."