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Notes -
How are we defining "effective" in this context?
One of MAGA's stated goals is to reduce illegal immigration. If "putting on a show for the base" results in illegal border crossings hitting a 50 year low, they may reasonably conclude that doing so is an effective means of achieving said goal. Refer also to my prior posts on "picking up Tuna Cans".
As for your concern about "selection effects", the argument pattern matches to a common form of rhetorical bait-and-switch where legal immigration is conflated with illegal immigration. I imagine that risk averse immigrants who sincerely want a stable/predictable legal situation would apply for legal status without having to be prompted or threatened.
There is a spectrum of illegality. At one extreme are the fully illegals. They crossed illegally, they operate in the black market selling illegal things, or only do cash jobs. At the other extreme are the people who scrupulously followed the process every step of the way.
In the middle are people with lapses. Student visas that expired while they were looking for a job out of grad school. Green card delays that meant they were supposed to leave the country for a month or two while things got worked out. H1-Bs between jobs. Kids brought here by parents that messed up the process.
Our immigration system is not simple enough that you can just easily categorize everyone into either extreme of legality.
Far stricter immigration enforcement is targeting those people in the middle. And even if you have scrupulously followed all the rules up to this point it doesn't mean something might happen in the future that causes a lapse. So risk averse people still don't want that harsh enforcement on the people in the middle.
I've never gotten in trouble for paying my taxes wrong, but I'm not in favor of making tax payment mistakes more harshly penalized. Taxes and income can get messy enough that I could screw up one day. There are tax dodgers and their non payment is making my taxes higher so I'm not happy about them and its fine to punish them. Same situation for immigrants.
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