Immigration procrastination

The latest federal efforts to stem illegal immigration will have no serious impact so long as the government fails to enforce existing immigration law. They may, however, ease the political pressure faced by members of Congress during an election year.

The House and Senate reconvened early this month to pass a bill increasing funds for border security. President Obama hastened to sign it into law. But the modest measure won't do more than temporarily mute the debate.

The law will add 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, improve their communications and give them more unmanned surveillance drones. It also adds Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and funds larger efforts by the Justice Department to catch and try drug dealers and human traffickers.

Not even the president thinks it will have much impact. As he put it: "Our borders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the problem only with fences and border patrols."

The president supports legislation similar to a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate in 2007, providing differing paths to citizenship for many illegal immigrants already in the country. But that bill died when polls demanded more stringent enforcement of immigration laws and a tighter border as a first measure.

Today the debate is just as deadlocked between advocates of what some call "amnesty" and those who want to reduce the illegal population and deter more illegal immigration.

Mr. Obama's signing of the new law to strengthen border enforcement was seen by pro-immigrant groups as a betrayal. The president of the League of United Latin American Citizens denounced the law as "appeasing anti-immigrant xenophobes" instead of advancing comprehensive reform.

Illegal immigration has eased for the time being, probably because of the recession. And the nation's population of illegal aliens has dropped by nearly 2 million since the summer of 2007, according to estimates of the non-profit Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. However, the decline has leveled off recently and the numbers could turn up again.

That still leaves some 10.6 million illegal aliens who have stayed in the U.S. The largest number cross the border as young, uneducated men, adding to the competition for jobs at the bottom of the economic ladder where recession unemployment rates are sky high.

Until a long-term solution can be advanced, the nation will have to rely on state initiatives such as those in Arizona, Rhode Island and South Carolina.