The Quote Below: More Misinformation from the Media
The immigration reform plan put forward by the White House on Thursday is a woefully insufficient answer to a terribly difficult problem. . . .
But public polls show that most Americans believe current legal immigration levels are acceptable or should be increased. . . . Further, the notion among some hard-liners that 10.7 million immigrants here illegally could be deported without causing critical damage to the economy, communities and families is absurd. As is the idea that a border wall can be built high enough and long enough to stop people from entering the country. . . .
The nation had its last serious shot at a compromise in 2013 when the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” bill, which ran more than 800 pages, passed the Senate but died in the Republican-controlled House. It’s hard to imagine that such a compromise could now be reached with the current administration. . . . – Trump’s Weak Immigration Proposal Should be a Prompt for Actual Immigration Reform, Los Angeles Times, Editorial Board, 5/16/19 [Link]
Fact Check of Quote: This article is current in saying that a number of polls show that a majority of Americans either support the level of immigration or want it increased. This finding, however, says more about the polling questions than what people actually believe. The fact of the matter is that a lot of people don’t know what the present level of legal immigration is.
For the record, legal immigration has averaged more than a million per year for the past twenty years. This by far is the highest sustained level in our history. Some polls, instead of asking respondents whether they support the current level, have asked them what they think the proper level should be. Among them were surveys conducted by Harvard-Harris and Pulse Opinion. Those polls found that substantial majorities favored substantially less legal immigration than we have now.
The claim that millions of illegal aliens cannot be sent home derives from the false notion that a massive immediate round-up of illegal aliens is the only way to expel them. Such an action probably would be impractical, but there is an alternative to accomplish he task. It goes by the names, “attrition through enforcement” and “self-deportation.”
It would work by slowly but steadily increasing immigration law enforcement so that it would become increasingly difficult for illegal residents to remain in the United States. In this situation increasing numbers of illegal aliens would go home on their own accord. In effect, they would self-deport. The process would be gradual and therefore would not cause social and economic disruption.
The idea that the “Gang of Eight” bill was a compromise is ludicrous. This legislation, which fortunately didn’t become law, proposed a mass amnesty for illegal aliens and a sharp increase in legal immigration and guest worker admissions. It offered almost a whole loaf to mass immigration advocates, and only a few crumbs of concessions to immigration restrictionists. Unfortunately, these are the kinds of “compromise” that most of the corporate media support.