The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

Mickey Kaus:

Apple picking is one area where the impact of actually enforcing the immigration laws can't be reduced by applying them only to "new" hires. The apple pickers are hired anew each season, apparently, and would be caught up in any effective new-hire screening. One possible solution is the existing agricultural guest-worker program, which the administration has pledged to streamline. The other obvious possible solution, should crops start rotting, is ... lax enforcement (or, if you prefer, prosecutorial discretion).

Mickey endorses the latter approach. (Well, sort of -- his point is a bit more subtle than that.) But how about just, you know, letting more immigrants in? Or absorbing the economic consequences of enforcement because it's worth it (which I take to be the position of principled restrictionists)? Must immigration policy always involve silly worst-of-both-worlds half-measures?

topics:
Law, Immigration