So What Do I Recommend?

With that said, assuming US Democracy survives and Democrats can regain power, what do I want to do about immigration?  

Well, keep Trump's border closing.  He seems to have been highly successful, and like it or not, there is no going back.

I belong to the "Feed ICE into the woodchipper" school. 

But feeding ICE into the wood chipper runs into one problem.  It appears that the worst offenses are not being committed by ICE, but by Border Patrol, now acting far away from the border, but with the same rough and ready lawlessness they show toward recent border crossers.  And if we want to control our borders, we really do need a border patrol. So what do we do about that?

Well, go ahead and disband ICE.  They have shown themselves to be a bunch of lawless, racist thugs even if Border Patrol is not in the picture.  At present, Border Patrol is given essentially unlimited power to do immigration searches within 100 miles of any border.  This includes ocean borders.  Their jurisdiction includes about 2/3 of the US population.  And they are not barred from searches in the interior, only place under the same restrictions as any law enforcement.  

Clearly, we need to limit the Border Patrol to activities connected with, you know, patrolling the border.  Start with a clear law barring them from any activity outside the 100 mile zone.  Strictly limit their activity along ocean barriers, and impose reasonable restriction along land borders, with a clear focus us on turning back crossings and fighting smuggling.  I will admit to not knowing enough to offer anything more specific.  And, yes, granted, there are serious problems with any laws under a fundamentally lawless administration, but we should be able to pare back personnel and infrastructure to what is actually needed to secure the border.

I am hesitant to go so far as to prosecute, and for several reasons.  The first is quite simple -- if Team Trump ever does allow Democrats into power again, it will undoubtedly issue a blanket pardon to everyone involved in immigration enforcement, making the whole matter moot.  The second is outright fear.  If Team Trump responds to a Democratic victory by launching a coup, ICE and Border Patrol are most likely to act if they anticipate criminal charges with a change in administration. The transition from dictatorship to democracy often requires an amnesty.  Otherwise the dictatorship would never give up power..  And finally, while I was disappointed that there were no prosecutions of human rights violations in the case of GW Bush's War on Terror, I was also impressed at how unnecessary prosecutions turned out to be.  Adverse publicity was enough.  I recommend something more like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to expose the prior administration's worst abuses.  Admittedly that will not stop state prosecutions, but that is a different matter for a different day.

So how to we deter unauthorized immigration if we halt internal enforcement?  Institute E-Verify to allow employers to check job applicant's legal status and penalize employers who don't use it.  The trouble with E-Verity is two-fold.  First, given that there are approximately 10 million people in the US today who would not qualify, the result would be to throw some 10 million people out of work, a prospect that could lead to serious upheaval.  That seems less alarming now in light of what is currently going on, but I agree, mandating E-Verity will have to be accompanied with some sort of amnesty.  Prior to Trump 2.0, I would have said that if pathway to citizenship is an insurmountable obstacle, fine, make it a two-year work visa with option to renew. But that gets a lot harder to endorse now.  What is to stop Republicans from cancelling all the work visas next time they come to power?  The other problem, as I understand it, is that the administrative burdens of applying for and approving work visas are more than small employers can meet.  Again, without claiming the expertise to offer specifics, I would say streamline and simplify work visas and make them more responsive to employment needs.

Finally, there is the issue of asylum claims.  I think that Trump 1.0 had essentially the right approach, that Biden rather belatedly began to copy -- arrange a safe haven for people to apply from abroad and admit them only after asylum claims are approved.  That might have worked politically if the Biden Administration had kept Remain in Mexico in place and limited itself to making it more humane.  After letting the border be overrun, a whole lot of people are permanently soured on any sort of asylum claims.  Team Trump offers a simple answer -- no asylum claims, ever, under any circumstances.  And, unfortunately, that approach is probably quite popular.

So what would I propose as an alternative?  I think we are going to have to admit that the US can never admit everyone who has a plausible claim.  I think we will also have to admit that asylum is a hotly contested political issue that does not lend itself to technocratic resolution, and that giving the President (whether Biden, Trump, or any other) unilateral power to decide is too much power for one person.*  Instead, have Congress set the asylum limits for each year.  Failure to act means that the last number remains in place.  And to anyone who objects that Congress will just set the number at zero, I can only say that if Congress sets the number at zero, that is strong evidence that the American people want the number to be zero.  If we want to admit more asylum cases, then it is incumbent on us to persuade the American people to do so.  Otherwise will be just end up with another Trump promising another draconian crackdown.

______________________________________________

*I do think that the President should have the power to expand the limit in cases of emergency such as natural disaster, civil war, etc.  I hope to write more on the subject of emergency powers later on, but I believe that Donald Trump has amply proven that these will have to be reigned in.  Emergency will have to be more stringently defined, and in general I favor requiring the President to seek an advance court ruling that an emergency exists.  We can apply that restriction in this case as well.