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Deportation efforts not cheap; Michael Book; Beaver County Times; March 9, 2016.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Talk is cheap, as the saying goes. The actual consequences of acting on such talk, often isn’t. Some candidates currently running for the Republican presidential nomination, such as Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, have advocated for the apprehension and deportation of the estimated 11 million undocumented people currently residing within the United States.”
[RWC] Mr. Book would like readers to believe Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) wants to go door-to-door to round up illegal aliens. Below are some excerpts from a Jake Tapper interview on CNN.
“Door to door, we don’t have any system that knocks on the doors of every person in America. That’s not actually how the American law enforcement system works.
“We also don’t have people going door to door looking for murderers. We don’t live in a police state. We do have law enforcement. How do we catch people? We catch them through things like E-Verify. We catch them through things like the criminal law enforcement system, where, in 2013, do you know how many criminal illegal aliens the Obama administration released?
“It was over 104,000, 196 with homicide convictions, murderers, roughly 400 with sexual assault convictions, rapists. That -- those numbers should be zero. Over 16,000 with drunk driving convictions.
“We -- we have law enforcement authorities that enforce our laws.
“Your question, you keep saying, are they going to knock on every door in American? No. I don’t intend to send jackboots to knock on your door and every door in America. That’s not how we enforce the law for any crime.”
In other places Mr. Cruz is interpreted to sound like he would send ICE door-to-door looking for illegal aliens ICE didn’t know about.
“Though deporting people in the country illegally will have human consequences, such as breaking up families, uprooting members of communities, disrupting businesses who employ any of these people, among other things, what you don’t hear from these candidates, is how much this idea would cost the American taxpayer, along with the sheer ludicrousness of suggesting it were even possible.”
[RWC] Illegal aliens are responsible for the “human consequences …,” not us. If illegal aliens were so concerned about “breaking up families, uprooting members of communities …,” they should have stayed home or followed our immigration laws.
It’s not like our laws are anti-immigrant. For 2000 - 2013, those receiving legal permanent resident status ranged from 703,542 to 1,266,129 per year. During the same period, the number of refugees we accepted per year ranged from 26,788 to 74,602. Remove the two years following 9/11 and the low would have been 41,094.
Sending convicted criminals to prison also “have human consequences …” What should be done about that?
“What would it take, to actually deport these people? From 2004 until 2013 The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) averaged apprehensions of approximately 946,000 while the number of people returned to their country of origin averaged 1,026,000 -- roughly 80,000 more deported than entered.
“The ICE Budget for Fiscal Year 2013 was roughly $24 billion. Now, if you assume that people from around the world will continue to want to enter the U.S. illegally, ICE will not only have to continue apprehending and deporting any new immigrants, but also begin investigating, locating, apprehending and deporting these 11 million as well. There would be no recourse but to increase ICE staffing, build facilities to house those apprehended until deportation, add administration staff for those deserving of a hearing and arrange for transport back to their country of origin. Who pays for it all?
“Granted, government by nature is inefficient, everyone would agree. But if $24 billion results in an average net of 80,000 deported, to deport 11 million, would cost $3.3 trillion. Aren’t conservatives supposed to be against big government and big government spending? If someone tells you something that sounds too good to be true, it often is.”
[RWC] Controlling our border is not “big government.” One form of big government is about government getting into stuff not covered by the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8 makes the feds responsible for the country’s defense. Most people would acknowledge border control is an aspect of national defense. Obamacare is an example of big government, not national defense.
Mr. Book chose not to mention another pillar of conservatism is rule of law.
Does Mr. Book believe we should not enforce a law if it costs too much?
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