How to deport without due process: make illegal immigrants WANT to leave

If Joe Biden effectuated his immigration policy without due process, why can’t Donald Trump do the same with his?That’s the question raised by Joe Biden’s effortlessly permitting millions of people to enter the country illegally and Donald Trump’s having to go through extensive exertions to remove (or keep removed) one illegal immigrant, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia shouldn’t have been deported to El Salvador, but the point still stands — illegal immigrants can be imported by the millions, with nothing more than a notice to appear and a bus ticket to their preferred destination, while there’s a time-consuming process to attempt to remove them by the thousands.This disparity inherently favors illegal immigration.As it happens, there’s a relatively easy way out of this box, although it’s not what the administration is trying to do now. The path to deportations without due process is not to invoke a dubious wartime power and perhaps ultimately defy the Supreme Court, all toward the goal of… deporting several hundred members of Tren de Aragua with some other random illegal immigrants mixed in. Even if this worked out brilliantly, the numbers involved are a fraction of a drop in the bucket. The way to get people out without due process is the same way they came in without due process — of their own volition. People choose to come to the United States illegally when they believe that the dangers are worth it because they stand a very good chance of getting in and staying.As we’ve seen over the last several months, if they think the balance has changed, they make a different calculation.Under Biden, with a permissive incentive structure, illegal immigration surged.Under Trump, with a restrictive incentive structure, illegal immigration has dried up. We need to replicate this switch within the United States.

Illegal immigrants stay in the United States because they can work and are unlikely to be deported.If the equation changes, their...