http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/the-killer-question-of-immigration-reform/article/2563416?utm_content=buffer590d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer?utm_content=buffer590d2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The killer question of immigration reform

A number of Republican 2016 presidential candidates are heading for a difficult moment on the issue of immigration reform. Here is how it will work:

1) It is commonplace among Republicans along the spectrum of opinion on the issue to say that the United States is not going to deport all 11 or 12 million immigrants currently in the country illegally. What that generally means is the United States is not going to deport any of those immigrants, barring some who have been convicted of multiple serious crimes.

2) It is becoming more common for Republicans to say that immigration reform has to be enacted in pieces and sequentially. That means that new security measures — the main ones are enhanced border security, the E-Verify system to identify employees working illegally, and the visa entry-exit system to stop visa overstays — those systems have to be not only passed into law, not only funded, but actually be implemented and up and running before lawmakers consider the status of the 11 or 12 million.

That leads to 3) If those new security measures are implemented, they will work. What then? Better border security would not be a problem for the millions currently here illegally; it would just prevent new illegal immigrants from entering the country. Entry-exit would also not be a problem for those already here; it would begin to track people entering the country and force them to leave at the point in the future when their legal permission to stay in the United States ends.

But what about E-Verify? If businesses were actually required to ascertain the legal status of their employees, those businesses would certainly identify millions of workers holding jobs in the United States illegally. What would happen to them? Candidates have already pledged that there will be no mass deportations of illegal immigrants who have not been convicted of multiple serious crimes. If they deport people identified by E-Verify, they're breaking that pledge. And if they don't, they're enacting the type of "amnesty" they also promised to avoid.

On Tuesday evening, I posed the "what then" question to a key Republican, one who has thought a lot about immigration. His response was essentially that there are some questions that need not be answered right now, and this is one of them.

But the time to answer the question will come. So-called "enforcement first" Republicans will have to grapple with the consequences of enforcement first. What happens when it works?

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