Border enforcement that works

In Eagle Pass, Texas, as everywhere else along the Mexican border, illegal aliens from Mexico who were arrested would be sent back over the border because there wasn’t enough room to hold them, while non-Mexican illegals would be simply released. In a new program that began last month, all apprehended illegals are now jailed, made possible by the U.S. Marshalls Service having freed up 1,000 beds in nearby county jails. The result has been a dramatic drop in the number of illegals crossing into the area.

Paul Nachman writes:

To my mind, this torpedoes all the arguments, constantly thrown in our faces, that “a wall won’t work, enforcement won’t work.” Assuming that Reuters got their facts and quotes right in this story, it demonstrates what everyone knows intuitively: that if breaking the law has consequences (and word of those consequences is effectively propagated), the offending behavior will get a lot rarer. The possibility that prospective invaders may be diverting to other stretches of the border doesn’t negate the simple logic demonstrated here.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 21, 2006 02:09 AM | Send