Polling shows broad public support for giving amnesty to long-established illegal aliens. President Biden and I agree on that.
But any immigration poll where Joe Biden and I provide the same answer is asking the wrong question.
Rewarding immigration lawbreakers by letting them keep what they stole (residence in the United States) is always distasteful. But it can be part of a pragmatic approach to cleaning up the mess created by past flawed policies.
But the only way such an amnesty can work as policy — and be accepted as legitimate by the public — is if it addresses the reasons that such a large illegal population developed in the first place. Otherwise, today’s amnesty simply tees up tomorrow’s even bigger amnesty.
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The radicalism of Biden’s approach is that it rejects both enforcement first and enforcement second in favor of enforcement never. . . .