Opening with a drive-by accusation of inhumanity is uncalled for. First, it’s the kind of casual political dehumanization that is THE problem with partisanship and polarization today. Second, it HAS to be dishonest because you actually engage with my main idea, the balance of suffering, in your post.

But I do appreciate that you did actually engage with the ideas, so moving on to the productive parts…

First, to briefly clarify, I said services, not welfare, and the specific example was policing. If immigrants contribute to the economy (i.e., the tax base directly or not) but don’t need to have their crimes investigated or other basic (non-welfare) government services, then that just supports my statement that the status quo is pretty ideal for morally bankrupt politicians and/or businessmen.

Next: law and the status quo is out of balance, yes, and we can either move people until the law is in force, or move the law until the people are consistent with it (or some combination). So yes, I’m trying to balance abstract law – but since I DON’T want the rule of law to be inhuman, the question is of least harm.

Here are some numbers. These days the US deports ~410k people (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/31/u-s-immigrant-deportations-declined-in-2014-but-remain-near-record-high/). Current estimates of the illegal immigrant population are just over 11 million (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/). If nothing changes, then in a little under 28 years the US will have done the equivalent of deported all illegal immigrants in the country and be looking to continue deporting, breaking up families, and giving police the opportunity to selectively enforce for the foreseeable future. In short, not only will the equivalent of a maximalist deportation happen under the status quo, it will be, as ably noted in (3) of the original post (and elsewhere), a life of fear and paranoia that this could be the day their family is torn apart.

Thus I have pretty good reasons to suspect that the status quo is WORSE than deportation followed by effective enforcement and deterrence of immigration controls. That is, all the complaints about mass deportation seem to also apply to the status quo.

Next point: “Created Equal” is a fine ideal, and one I agree with. But it’s not the only ideal. By itself, it implies no borders, no citizenship status, as dividing up people like that runs counter to the idea. But Democracy is another nice ideal, and I’m pretty sure “no borders” or “no immigration limits” is not going to pass the Democratic process these days, so that option is likely out. Similarly (though slightly less) politically untenable is any sort of grand compromise involving some amnesty/naturalization, some deportations, and border controls to prevent the horrible status quo from re-occurring.

That leaves #1 (Status Quo) and #4 (Mass Deportation). #1 is achieved by doing nothing, #4 plausibly achievable through executive power, thanks to decades of bipartisan executive power creep. (That’s where the binary choice comes from. You’re correct I wasn’t clear on that, I hope it’s clear now.)

This is why I’m on the fence and have misgivings, because as far as I can tell the status quo is set to cause more suffering for more people than deportation, and deportation seems to be the next most practical option after the status quo. I wrote the initial comment because I AM NOT HAPPY with that conclusion and wanted, as I said before, to see if there was some way out that I wasn’t seeing.

Since I was apparently misunderstood, I’m writing a second long long comment to clarify. Telling me that the policy options should magically conform to all my ideals does not actually give me that policy option. Sadly.

Now for your last paragraph, and best point. The immigrants are choosing the hazards of illegal crossings, risks of deportation, and potential life of paranoia of all things government, and so the market has spoken. This is a good argument, a very good argument, but not sufficient. Oh, I could say it’s insufficient because it utterly discounts the democratic opinion of current citizens and so tacitly suggests the immigrants’ opinion counts for more, but the real reason (at least for me) is my misgivings of how that argument works.

Some people would prefer to be in the US even in a legal quagmire, so since they’re willing to make that trade who are we to stop them. Fine.

Then by the same logic: Some people would prefer to work even at below minimum wage, so who are we to enforce minimum wage laws?

Or any number of other versions – OSHA compliance, anti-harassment laws, and ever so many others. It’s a very libertarian idea, but there’s a reason I don’t call myself a libertarian and it’s because the argument for regulation, ANY regulation is that without boundaries people will find ways to abuse the freedom – without minimum wage, local monopolies on jobs can lead to servitude and no power to demand job safety rules, etc. Similarly, to the topic at hand, that accepting a pool of legally gray labour will enable and encourage people to abuse that labour force.

For the final argument to be TRULY convincing, I’d like a reason to believe that, at least in this case, the moral hazard argument does not apply. The descriptions I have read of gray labour working conditions both hear and abroad do not make me optimistic.