I want to elaborate on my comment shooting down these ideas. It's hard to do it without a thread. The problem with these ideas is that they're essentially all or nothing ideas. And while those often sound good in theory, they're usually disastrous in practice. I'll explain why.
First, decriminalizing the border is bad policy. We can amend the law to prevent the prosecution of asylum seekers, stop family separation, and prohibit putting kids in cages. The problem with blanket decriminalization is that it'll create a free for all at the border.
Without any criminal law, we either have to wait for a person to commit a crime here or use the civil process. The problem with the civil process is that a noncitizen can voluntarily deport and then cross over again with no consequences. They go through the same process again.
For most undocumented aliens, that's not a big issue because they're here to work and to not commit crimes. But there are a small minority who are dangerous people. We need to have a mechanism to deter them from crossing into the country without authorization.
Moving onto the moratorium on deportations, this is another blanket policy that isn't a good idea practically speaking. Some people are deported because they committed crimes. Some of those crimes are violent crimes. The key isn't a moratorium, it's proper enforcement priorities.
That means not deporting people who are here raising a family and working. But it does mean deporting people who are here engaging in serious crimes. Finally, redesigning the agencies would be purely an optics move that would have little real effect on the system.
ICE and CBP used to be INS. Changing the name didn't change the agencies. And eliminating the agencies would just shift their enforcement duties to another agency. The key is setting the correct enforcement priorities and amending laws to prevent the past abuses.
What we need is comprehensive immigration reform. But comprehensive immigration reform isn't going to work with blanket policies. Our immigration system is a complex problem. We need a robust guest worker system. We need to amend laws to prevent abuses by the Executive.
We need to overhaul our immigration court system and provide better procedural protections. We need to modernize our border security. We need to create a more compassionate asylum system. We need better enforcement priorities and rational prosecutorial discretion.
We need to hold people accountable who have abused their positions of power. There's a lot of work to be done. But they require nuanced, targeted solutions. #ImmigrationReform
For reference, I was responding to these ideas:
