Should the House Democrats Block Funding of the Border Wall?

Nolan Rappaport on The Hill argues that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi should seriously consider an immigration compromise that includes funding for President Trump’s border wall or risk efforts that the administration seeks to limit immigration through workplace enforcement of the bar on the employment of undocumented labor.  As he puts it, “If Pelosi prevents Trump from putting a wall across the Mexican border, his only viable option for reducing illegal crossings will be to focus his resources on eliminating the job magnet that draws undocumented aliens to the United States.”

Even if funding for a wall might avert other immigration enforcement measures, there still is little evidence that a wall will reduce the undocumented population in the United States.  As I have argued, a long term solution to undocumented immigration requires eliminating the magnet of jobs in the United States through a reliable computer database (and the current federal database E-Verify is error-ridden), national identification card, or another device that effectively and reliably identifies work authorization.

KJ