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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   34135 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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Trump Says He Wants to Deport Millions. He’ll Have a Hard Time Removing More People Than Biden Has (archive here)

Thought this might contribute in an interesting way to the current talk about deportation, expulsion, and the election. So we all know Trump is talking a big game right now about mass deportation. Interestingly, the article mentions that at least in theory, 42% of Democrats also support mass deportation (and slightly over half of Americans overall). Of course, like the wall, it's of some question whether and how much it would happen, and of course we haven't talked at all about who would pay for it this time. Not only are there legal hurdles a president can't fix alone or even sometimes with legislation, at least not easily, but there's also diplomatic considerations -- a lot of countries literally refuse to take people back, planes are expensive, and there's a pilot shortage anyways. The closing quote considers mass deportations more of a general rallying cry on the seriousness level of "defund the police".

Basically the article points out that under existing deportations, there appears to be a cap based on ICE's funding and priorities and infrastructure of at most 30,000 deportations in a month, and this seems to be a roughly hard cap across administrations. Please take a look at this chart or it might lack context. The article talks about how under Title 42's implementation, which was started by Trump in March 2020 and kept in place by Biden when he took office in 2021 and continues through today, you were allowed to more effectively expel migrants (note the phrasing - this is not deportation!) and at high rates, usually at or near the border (unlike deportation, which is usually the culmination of a longer process and involves courts usually).

Largely due to this, the Biden administration actually expelled millions more migrants than Trump did!

During just his first two years in office, Biden used [Title 42] to kick out over 2.8 million migrants. That’s a stunning number. In Trump’s entire time in the White House, his administration removed only 2 million people total.

That's quite a quote. Two years of Biden was more than four years of Trump? Yes. Of course the Biden (and now Harris) campaign probably didn't want to talk about this so explicitly, but there you have it. ICE was surged to the border and prioritized that over internal searches, so that was part of it, and remember that currently, actual deportation is kind of at its limit, in addition to costing thousands of dollars per case, which likely wouldn't change substantially even under the most rosy of Trump deportation plans (though it's possible the time per case might drop with more resources the time to train and prepare the bureaucracy and infrastructure would be significant). The article notes that claims of using the National Guard to do deportations isn't very realistic -- it would take a decent amount of time and training to get them set up to do so, and so using their manpower is far from a panacea.

Anyways, definitely look at the chart. Is this good evidence that threats of mass deportations are indeed political theater more than an actual proposal? Or should anti-immigration voters actually consider a vote for Harris?

Expelling migrants dumps them back over the border they were just caught crossing, leaving them free to try again tomorrow, next week, or next month. Thus, the high expulsion numbers in the Biden administration are artificially increased by repeated encounters with the same people over and over again. According to the American Immigration Council:

"[N]early half of [the 1.8 million] expulsions [at the southern border during the first two years of the Biden administration] were of the same people being apprehended and expelled back to Mexico multiple times . . . Half of all single adults from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador who have been expelled to Mexico under Title 42 have been apprehended crossing the border again. As a result, Title 42 has significantly increased overall border crossings. In fact, 1 in 3 apprehensions since Title 42 expulsions began have been of a person on at least their second attempt to cross the border."

Mandatory e-Verify for every single employer in every state on penalty of ruinous fines (10% of global turnover per year per infraction) for even a single breach would be enough.

Biden let them all in, gave each a court date that will never come (alternatively TPS or "humanitarian" parole), and a work permit. Take those away and they'll leave.

It's a totally missed point over and over that Biden gave all the illegals "legal" status and that's why it's so attractive.

Immigration would be really easy to reverse. Start handing out real punishments for hiring illegal migrants. The US is a surviellence state in which the NSA pretty much knows the physical location of every person in real time and spies on all communication. Yet they can't seem to cut off services to people who are in the US illegally.

You don’t even need the ic, just making employers use e-verify would solve this problem

Create a program to fine business owners $3k per illegally employed person. Then use that money to fund deportations and a snitching program where you get a $500 payment if someone is successfully fined under the program.

All of a sudden there would be a mad push to check greencards and legal workers snitching out their illegal coworkers.

I am reminded of arguments against the death penalty that turn on how incredibly expensive it is to put someone to death (when one factors all the delays, legal proceedings, hearings and so forth). It is strange because these activists whether they are anti-death penalty or anti-deportation act like these costs are some essential part of the process when they’re obviously not. Executing someone could be done for pennies if we cleared the obstacles and proceeded as efficiently as possible and the same is nearly true of deportation (nearly, obviously deportation is somewhat more expensive inherently).

These things are always just issues of willpower as @IGI-111 said below. Clear the legal hurdles, brush aside defiant activists and NGOs and you’ll find our the process is not nearly so expensive and our capacity would be near limitless

It's actually pretty interesting you bring that up. Because I am anti capital punishment not for any moral reason (in fact if anything I think it makes plenty of sense) but for practical/pragmatic reasons instead. Why spend all this money over a fuss? Sometimes the opposition is just too entrenched that taking some sort of moral stand isn't worth it. And wanting to kill bad people instead of imprisoning them doesn't seem like such a massively important thing it's worth wasting "political capital" on. Like, even if I were to agree with saying immigration is bad and hurts the country (which I actually partially do) doing mass deportation is just too much of a political pain for not so much gain that it doesn't seem worth pursuing. Especially when decent-looking compromises show up with some regularity (e.g. Gang of Eight bill that almost made it, or even the less desirable but still OK bill that Trump tanked very recently).

The justification for the high costs will be similarly analogous. For the death penalty, you want to execute as few innocent people as possible. In principle, no innocent people would ever be executed. In real world practice, a legal death penalties always puts innocent people do death in rare circumstances (governments are incompetent, Juries composed of Everymen, etc).

Likewise, the real world of deportations are far more complex than a simply wishing that the correct people are deported in the correct way. Laws are frequently squishy. A few million cases a year are clear, and people are quickly deported (roughly 10k per day). The others have to be argued. Removing barriers before understanding why they are there is an understandable impulse, but a dubious policy.

Granted, in both circumstances activists are incentivized to run up costs. That seems like more a feature than a bug. The US government is set up to protect people from the government.

I don't think that you have a right not to be deported. Being in the US for non citizens is at the absolute discretion of the USG.

Absolutely. Assuming you are not a citizen, you can be deported. Not germane to the point I'm trying to make.

I'm responding to OP's claim that its "obvious" deportations can be done much more rapidly and cheaply, making an analogy to the death penalty.

Im pointing to the system we have, the tradeoffs made, the reasons behind them, and the traditions created. I'm arguing that the costs are inherently high because of our Constitution, laws, and history. The USG is free to pursue mass deportations, but rarely has, and I find that telling. Oddly enough, the last few administrations to campaign on it don't do it, and those that campaign against it end up deporting even more people. Strange

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/#:~:text=The%20unauthorized%20immigrant%20population%20in,the%20most%20recent%20year%20available.

The US government is set up to protect people from the government.

This proves too much. Without any counterbalancing principle, like the government should also protect people from crime, activists would be justified in placing the standard for any conviction arbitrarily high.

There is the explicit principle of providing for the general welfare of citizens to counterbalance, but this has always been a justification of power. Perhaps I should have been clearer: the US was unique at the time for explicitly protecting people from the government. Fully half of the bill of rights is dedicated to - stated uncharitably - "protecting criminals". The whole system created new tradeoffs. There are no stongment to carry out easy solutions to problems. On the other hand, its harder for governmental caprice to crush people.

This is a backwards way of looking at the problem, IMO.

Before we even talk about deportation we have to talk about stopping more people from coming through the southern border. The Biden administration saw the largest influx of illegal immigration in history, dwarfing by far anything that came before. Not only that, but his rhetoric seemingly encouraged this immigration, dangling the possibility of amnesty to new arrivals.

So, step 1, we need a system that prevents further illegal immigration. Step 2, we need to rule out further amnesties that will only encourage more immigration. Step 3, we need to prosecute people who knowingly hire large amounts of illegal immigrants.

People on both sides of the aisle have fever dreams of ICE agents rounding up illegals. This is frankly a ridiculous idea. Eliminate the economic incentive for people to immigrate and you solve the problem. Self-deportation is the quickest path to a meaningful reduction in the illegal population. Bribing illegals to leave is also an extremely cost effective solution (provided that a second offense results in prison time).

I don't think there's any good evidence at all about amnesty incentivizing illegal immigration. Every compromise comprehensive immigration bill that has ever come close to passing (and several have come very close) has been torpedoed by exactly this attitude that is, frankly, massively counterproductive. Not to the point where I'd be quite ready to accuse the GOP of deliberately extending the issue in order to profit from it electorally, but certainly close to it! For example, the Gang of Eight bill was almost a marvelous compromise that left most people happy: more border money, an expanded work verification system, a system for temporary agricultural workers, all of which can help prevent further illegal immigration, and a path to citizenship for some people who have been law-abiding (aside from the obvious) and been here a long time (because let's face it -- someone who's been in the country for 15 years actually does, in effect, live here and it's socially, morally, and even economically disruptive to kick them out). And we'd allow the regular immigration system to work better. Because it's not just pure economics, there's a lot of family/social/network effects going on with immigrants, and also a more expansive legal system serves as a relief valve of sorts (why risk all your chance at future, perfectly legal immigration if you wait and maybe get a fair shake, and cross illegally and be forever barred? That's also an incentive).

In other words, an actual and effective solution is probably close to your own, just with a few steps reordered. While politically and optically the ball is in the Democrats' court due to the recent numbers, the actual ball is in stubborn right-wing attitudes like yours that are just cutting off the nose to spite the face. I emphasize recent because if we zoom back out a little bit, what really matters isn't so much the specific in and outflows -- as you yourself point out, those don't always paint the full story. I probably should have led with this chart, but take a look anyways at overall estimates of illegal immigrants, because that's what we're really trying to talk about, right? Optimizing for light. The last two decades have seen very large numbers of these immigrants. But superimpose if you will in your head the growth of the overall population since 1990 (~250 to 330 million per census) too. And look closely, because the patterns don't hew very closely to political rhetoric. In other words, the problem is roughly stable (still a problem, but stable!) because in the last 15 years all we've done is yo-yo between about 10 and 12 million illegal immigrants.

I don't think there's any good evidence at all about amnesty incentivizing illegal immigration.

There is though. The last time this "amnesty but tougher rules" compromise was tried it backfired spectacularly. The rules weren't enforced and the illegal population exploded as demonstrated by your chart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986

The Immigration Reform and Control Act altered U.S. immigration law by making it illegal to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and establishing financial and other penalties for companies that employed illegal immigrants. The act also legalized most illegal immigrants who had arrived in the country prior to January 1, 1984.

There is no way that Reagan would have signed that if he could have seen what had happened. The next amnesty will have the same result. Amnesty is a textbook moral hazard.

the actual ball is in stubborn right-wing attitudes like yours that are just cutting off the nose to spite the face.

I'm not even anti-immigration. I just think that the current system is indefensible. Why should our immigrants be composed of whoever decides to break the rules and come into the country? And calling my attitude "right wing" is what people are talking about when they say that the left is sprinting away from the center at warp speed.

It looks like they only granted like 60,000 people amnesty in the next three years. That's hardly even a blip and not enough to actually change the behavior of potential immigrants. It's primarily driven by economic forces. And if you look further down on the same wikipedia page, there are sources that bear it out. Note that especially in the 90s, immigration to California, New York, Florida, and Texas alone comprised over half of the influx, and many, many other states received large amounts of immigrants despite overall hostility or lack of public/social service support. In other words, economics and network effects seem to consistently trump any other effects, most certainly including most legal repercussions.

I also dislike the current system and think it's possible our views don't diverge all that much. But I still strongly believe that opposition to amnesty is a millstone in practical terms and I think opposing amnesty is the real moral hazard. Assimilation in America is actually crazy fast, and we have to acknowledge that a big chunk of the illegal immigrant population are functionally Americans, even if they legally are not. Far from all! But there are enough cases of kids who were brought to the country when they were under 10 and now don't even speak Spanish and barely differ from other Americans culturally that sending them and their families back wholesale feels exceptionally gross.

I should add that at some point we need to take some personal and collective responsibility for letting it get to this point. IMO, a lot of people and politicians turned a blind eye because the immediate economic effects were positive, and we also took practically zero strides toward reforming the legal system to the point where the illegal system was bound to become the new normal -- kind of Prohibition style.

It looks like they only granted like 60,000 people amnesty in the next three years.

That statistic can't be right can it? If you are proposing that we amnesty the 60,000 most deserving candidates, I have no problem with it. As far as I know, one one has proposed this.

I also think it's likely that our desired goals don't diverge that much, but that you have a much greater trust in politicians and the system than I do.

Yes, don't trust Wikipedia summaries. From the source:

"As indicated in Exhibit 1, three million persons applied for legalization. The applicants represented most legalization eligible aliens given an estimated illegal immigrant population of 3-5 million in 1986 (Hoefer, 1991). The approval rates for temporary and permanent residence were fairly high among both legalization (pre-1982 applicants) and SAW applicants. Nearly 2.7 million persons--nearly nine in ten applicants for temporary residence--were ultimately approved for permanent residence" ...

The impact of IRCA was much more concentrated with respect to legal immigration than naturalization (see Exhibit 2 and Exhibit 3). IRCA LPRs represented more than 40% of all immigrants in fiscal years 1989-1991 but never accounted for more than 23% of naturalizations in any one year. The peak in IRCA naturalizations probably occurred in 1996 when one-quarter million became citizens. By then, the entire cohort had become eligible to naturalize.

Good catch, I've been bamboozled!

Step 1.5 really ought to be "enforce existing law against conspiracy to violate federal law on NGOs and funders of illegal migration," as well as cutting the economic benefits of migration via taxes or limitations on remissions. But that's just my position.

Every time I see one of these bits about how hard it is to deport people, I just find myself asking why we can't just repeat Operation Wetback.

a lot of countries literally refuse to take people back,

Can't we just make them? I mean, if a US ship full of a bunch of immigrants to be repatriated, guarded by Marines and with a couple of Navy boats escorting, show up at one of the country's ports and start offloading people, what can the country in question really do about it?

I mean the answer is just announce everyone who gets deported goes to Haiti- lots of people will decide that Mexico is a better deal and go back on their lonesome- if it comes to that. But as the regional hegemon the US does have an interest in stability and that means not trampling on the sovereignty of lesser powers.

Operation Wetback was able to deport as many people as they did because they had an unusually high level of Mexican co-operation, which was only available in the context of a bracero programme which let in roughly as many legal Mexicans as Operation Wetback deported illegal ones. There were tens of thousands of people who were deported under Operation Wetback, returned to the US as braceros, violated the rules of the bracero programme, and got deported again under Operation Wetback. All within less than a year.

Operation Wetback also operated at a time when America was sufficiently racist that nobody cared if a few Hispanic US citizens were deported accidentally (as far as I can see, nobody has investigated how many citizens were deported, but the Great Depression era "Mexican repatriation" programme had deported hundreds of thousands of them). The reason why deportation is administratively expensive is that America has no list of US citizens it can check people against, and the list of legal immigrants isn't accurate or complete enough (this is pure INS incompetence - in principle the US should have an up-to-date list of all non-citizens legally in the country) for deporting anyone not on it to be "safe".

That actually seems like a pretty good example. I'm not sure from the descriptions I'm reading how much was random round-ups and how much was how the government already had paperwork on a lot of them. This might help with visa overstays, but I think most immigration at least through the southern border generally does not generate a government paper trail. There also was a level of buy-in from the police and actually employers too (!) which I don't think would be replicated today. Also, Britannica says the number was probably more like 300k rather than the claimed million or more, so if we extrapolate to today, that only would deport 600k rather than the millions Trump says. Plus, this was 1954. Recall that the US had just exited the Korean War and fought WW2 in the same decade -- the scale, capability, and organization of the military back then was at a high point and with a large amount of manpower that frankly the National Guard today I don't think could replicate.

There are limits, or more accurately consequences, to what the US can do abroad. Like let's take Mexico. Mexico generally lets us get away with a lot, but the threat of force might cause a lot of issues. We would actually stand to lose a lot if we forced it too much, like think how much access the DEA has in Mexico, that could change overnight. So yeah, very short term guns would work, but I don't think it would last long, and is that really what we want to return to? Would give echoes of the gun-enforced interventionism of the early 20th century in Latin America, which a lot of people frown on today.

what can the country in question really do about it?

You don't even really need all that fanfare, you just throw them in ships with enough fuel for a one way trip. If Castro could empty his prisons to the US, why can't the US do it to others with vastly more ressources?

It requires only the will to do so, really.

Well the Cuban prisons angle was way overstated for one, for two they don't, uh, want to go to back, and three we don't actually own that many ships and who is going to be the captain anyways? Incoming boats are much more difficult to deal with than deliberately sending out boats, especially since we both legally and morally (and, frankly, politically as well) have to be at least a little humane about it.

No, you basically do need buses or planes for people going to Mexico and planes exclusively for people going elsewhere. Though there would be a certain irony if we ended up buying a ton of Chinese-built ships to use for deportations.

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