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Notes -
Trump could (and should) have sicced federal law enforcement on the businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Everyone knows who does it, everyone knows where the live, and they have attachable assets. Illegal immigration sceptics on both sides of the political fence know that this would work, and that more security on the border probably wouldn't (not least because ~1/2 of all illegal residents were originally overstayers and not border-jumpers). The vast majority of illegal immigrants come to the US to work illegally, and if people stopped employing them they would stop coming.
He didn't, because businesses which employ illegal immigrants are a key GOPe constituency, and at that point he was still trying to work with the GOPe. And the MAGA base didn't care.
We still see far more people calling for fences and deportations than we do calling for universal e-Verify. I despise people who try to psychoanalyze political opponents, so I am not going to speculate on why this is. But part of the reason why politicians (even Trump) don't actually try to reduce illegal immigration is that the voters who say they want less illegal immigration don't expect them to.
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