What conservatives want -- but won't get -- from immigration reform

Conservatives don't have the votes to maintain deportation, as we discussed here.  Nor have we ever beaten a black market, as discussed here.

Instead, here's the most likely political outcome:

The Democrats will either take the House or come close in November, and some version of the DACA and Dreamer eligible will be granted permanent or indefinite residency, in return for a promise of enhanced border protection and more aggressive ICE efforts.

As the US has never beaten a black market, it will again fail this time around as border enforcement will prove ineffective.  On the other hand, potential migrants will be encouraged by DACA / Dreamer amnesty to believe that, if they can just hang on, they or their children will in time also gain amnesty.  It sets up a replay of 1986 (with the caveat that Latin American demographics are different today than they were in, say, 1990).  The quote below, from The Atlantic in 1994, will come back to haunt conservatives once again: 

The mass legalization of then-illegal immigrants was traded for the promise that a new program of employer sanctions would destroy the incentive for further mass immigration. That hope proved vain; but if it had never been entertained, IRCA would never have passed.

In other words, conservatives were played for suckers, by a Republican White House and Senate and a Democratic House.  The graph below shows the appalling result:

Population.png

Conservative anger and xenophobia may be understandable, but in policy terms, it's the equivalent of leading with your chin.  Anger is not enough.  Conservatives also have to be smart.