What Is "Attrition Through Enforcement," And Can It Work?
For years, restrictionists such as Mark Krikorian and his Center for Immigration Studies ("CIS") have touted the concept of "attrition through enforcement" as an alternative to mass detentions and deportations. Here's Krikorian's 2005 description:
"Shrink the illegal population through consistent, across-the-board enforcement of the immigration law. By deterring the settlement of new illegals, by increasing deportations to the extent possible, and, most importantly, by increasing the number of illegals already here who give up and deport themselves, the United States can bring about an annual decrease in the illegal-alien population, rather than allowing it to continually increase."
Does this notion hold water?
Decades of in-depth, scholarly research done at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (UC San Diego) gives us the answer, a resounding "No."
"it is the combination of poor job prospects in the United States with higher costs of migration (mainly, people-smugglers’ fees) that has discouraged new migration in recent years, among both legal and unauthorized migrants. ...[N]either the economic crisis nor workplace raids and other forms of interior enforcement are inducing large numbers of migrants already in the United States to go home."
In November 2010, look for a new book, "Recession Without Borders: Mexican Migrants Confront the Economic Downturn," to underscore this point.
As noted by veteran border watcher Charles Bowden, "The only way you’ll stop Mexicans coming to the U.S. is if you lower American wages to the same level as Vietnam. ... What we’re seeing is something right out of the Bible. This is an exodus."