Op-ed: Yes, Illegal Immigration Can Be Controlled

For years we have heard that immigration is like the weather — it can’t be controlled, so get used to it. Open-borders advocate David Bier actually wrote a piece for the New York Times in 2023 titled “Biden Can’t Stop Immigration. Time to Embrace It.” In 2024, NPR assured us that, “despite a fortified border, migrants will keep coming.” While the scale of illegal immigration during the Biden administration was completely unprecedented, only a few months into the Trump administration, border encounters are down 93 percent. It turns out that illegal immigration can be greatly curtailed if the government is committed to actually enforcing the law.

But what about those illegal immigrants already here? A new analysis by me and my colleague Karen Zeigler shows that enforcement has significantly reduced the number of illegal immigrants in the country. We estimate that between January and May of this year, the illegal immigrant population declined by 1 million. Deportations have been only a small fraction of that number, so most of this decline must have been due to a big increase in emigration, almost certainly because of stepped-up enforcement.

. . .

[Read the whole thing at National Review.]