That's why "enforcement first" is the only plausible approach to immigration:
Put in place the mechanisms needed to truly enforce our borders, overcome the myriad court challenges from the opponents of immigration law, and reduce the size of the illegal population through attrition before starting a debate on amnesty.
Newt Gingrich's recent comments backing amnesty suggest, however, that there might be certain narrow groups of illegal aliens whose case is so compelling that some form of amnesty for them would actually strengthen the consensus for enforcement.
Gingrich's own proposal is comically half-baked and would legalize most of the illegal population while opening the door to unlimited future immigration. However, it's telling that in his comments he focused only on the two most sympathetic groups: adults brought here as very young children and those who came as adults but who have lived here for decades. As he described it, "You've been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church. . .."
It turns out that there are, indeed, ways for less frivolous politicians than Gingrich to appeal to both Americans' heads and their hearts on immigration - to back real, unapologetic enforcement but provide mechanisms for flexibility in the hardest cases of long-established illegal aliens.
