The administration is right to argue that enforcing immigration laws gets criminal aliens out of communities. It is exceedingly unwise for jurisdictions to release undocumented immigrants from their jails as a matter of policy, even after Immigration and Customs Enforcement asks them to hold them.
The reasons for enforcing the law go well beyond sending criminal aliens home. When ordinary undocumented immigrants leave, or are deported, the rule of law is restored, less-educated American workers win, as do taxpayers. It also keeps the size of the foreign-born population within reasonable limits, facilitating assimilation.
In its detailed 2017 review of the academic literature, the National Academies of Sciences listed more than a dozen studies showing that immigration reduces wages for some American workers, particularly the least educated and poorest. It is difficult to tease out the specific effects of illegal immigration. However, the Center for Migration Studies and Migration Policy Institute estimate that seven out of 10 undocumented immigrants have no education beyond high school. The documented immigrants and U.S.-born workers facing competition from undocumented immigrants tend to be the least educated and poorest.
Undocumented immigration has also allowed politicians, businesses and society to ignore the huge decline in work among less-educated U.S.-born men. In 1960, 7 percent of non-institutionalized U.S.-born men ages 20 to 64 without a college degree were not in the labor force, meaning neither working nor looking for work. By 2000, it was 16 percent, and, in 2025, it was 21 percent.
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