The Illegal Immigration Collapse

Wall Street Journal (Editorial): To listen to the recent Republican Presidential debates, you'd think illegal immigration was the biggest threat to the U.S. economy—not to mention to the rule of law, our social fabric and national security. We hate to spoil the political reverie, but the real immigration story these days is how many fewer illegal migrants are trying to get into the land of the free. That's the news from the Department of Homeland Security, which reports that border apprehensions have dropped to their lowest level in nearly 40 years. For fiscal 2010, arrests were 463,000, down from 724,000 in 2008—a one-third decline in two years. In the first 11 months of fiscal 2011, through August, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports that apprehensions were 316,458, well below last year's level. As the nearby chart shows, as recently as 2006 more than one million illegals were arrested entering the country each year. Some of the decline in illegal crossings is no doubt due to both the reality of, and the deterrence effect from, increased security at the Rio Grande Valley and other border areas. The number of agents has roughly doubled over the past decade, and the Border Patrol has improved its surveillance. But surely the biggest factor is the poor U.S. economy. Immigrants of all types come to the U.S. primarily for jobs and opportunity. In the booming 1980s and 1990s, when the economy created more than 35 million net new jobs, border crossings were often three times higher than they are today. As growth has slowed and job openings are fewer, the attraction of the U.S. has dimmed. This may be cause for celebration in some places, but not in these columns. The fact that foreign workers, like overseas investment funds, aren't as attracted to the U.S. as they once were is another sign of economic malaise. According to the Census Bureau's historical data, the only time in U.S. history when more people left America than arrived was during the height of the Great Depression. This is not a period to emulate. We'd gladly take faster growth with more illegal immigration over slower growth and fewer illegals. Despite these falling apprehension numbers, Republicans and their talk show minders are still shouting that the border isn't "secure." But by their definition the border will never be secure. This line has become the all-seasons excuse to block any immigration reform that would allow more legal avenues into the U.S. This campaign is already doing great harm to U.S. agriculture, as farmers are unable to find enough workers of any kind to harvest their crops. Yet Republicans are putting onerous restrictions on recruiting legal workers for those jobs. (See our editorial, "Republican Overregulation," Sept. 13.) The declining border apprehensions show that economic opportunity, not a life on the dole, is the main motivation for immigrants who enter the U.S. with or without a visa. If there were more legal avenues, fewer migrants would have an incentive to enter illegally. Immigrants bring vitality and skills to the U.S. economy, whether in the tech centers of Silicon Valley or the farmlands of the Midwest and Yuma Valley. We need more of both these days.