Jeff Thies wrote:

That makes it sound like the current administration is doing nothing.
Deportations are up under Obama and so is border enforcement.

Both of which are largely irrelevant. So what if deportations are double
those of prior administrations if the number of illegal immigrants increases
five-fold? More immigrants implies a greater chance of catching some, but
also implies a greater chance of more getting through.

The better metric whould be the number of illegal immigrants that manage to
avoid detection for, say, one year.


Most of the violence in the border area is not due to illegal
immigrants, they have a lower arrest rate than legals (the reason why
is obvious), but is due to drug trafficking. Arizona's law does
little to fix that. But this isn't really about what works and what
doesn't, what is constitutional and what isn't. It's largely about
throwing red meat to the party of the terminally upset.

It makes no sense.


I agree that simply catching more immigrants won't stop the flow of drug
smugglers - there are an almost infinite number of Mexicans waiting in line.

Catching more will disincentivize the "honest" illegal immigrant who merely
wants a job. That may be enough inasmuch as the drug smugglers are here only
temporarily; they drop their load beside the road and go home. By
air-conditioned bus.