At this intermission in the immigration debate, with House Republicans preparing to look askance at the Senate's handiwork, the argument is becoming ever stranger. It has reached a boil, especially concerning border security, at a moment when illegal entries are at a 40-year low and net immigration from Mexico has recently been approximately zero, largely because enforcement efficiency has already been substantially improved and because America's economic growth is inferior to Mexico's. Yet some Senate Republicans support spending $46 billion over 10 years to, among other things, double the number of border agents.
The Government Accountability Office says border security in 2011 was about 84 percent effective. A much-discussed aspiration is 90 percent. So the $46 billion is supposed to purchase a six-point improvement. This embarrassing militarization of the border was designed to entice a few of the 14 Senate Republicans (of 46) who joined all Democrats in supporting the Senate bill. Some senators expect House Republicans to be swayed because a minority of the Senate minority supported the bill. These senators should trek to the other side of the Capitol and, like Margaret Mead among the Samoans, mingle with the natives.
On June 28, the Senate received a 114-page amendment to the (by then) more than 1,000-page "Gang of Eight" bill, which the Senate passed the following Thursday. Senators can repent at leisure after they read details such as: Never mind what maps say, the Senate says Nevada is a border state. So Majority Leader Harry Reid's constituents, and those of Nevada's Republican Sen. Dean Heller, supporters of the bill, can feast on border security pork.