The unintended consequences of prohibition
Illegal immigration and the rule of law
Last Tuesday, the Department of Justice filed suit against the state of Arizona and its governor Janice Brewer, arguing that the state had overstepped its proper role by interfering with the inherently federal issue of immigration. The move fits into a larger debate over how the United States should deal with illegal immigration. One important question raised by this debate concerns the appropriate response to situations in which constant and flagrant violation of the law is the norm.
In the case of illegal immigration, a number of different approaches are commonly discussed, alone or in combination, such as prevention (a wall or more rigorous border patrols), deportation, punishment of employers who use illegal labor, amnesty, and guest worker schemes. These remedies fall into two general categories. Some focus on integrating illegal immigrants into a more open and transparent system and, in the process, effectively decriminalizing illegal immigration. Others rely on strict policing to stem and discourage the flow of undocumented labor into the country.
At the extremes, supporters of the new Arizona laws argue that tolerating illegal immigration is destructive of the rule of law; opponents argue that attempting to enforce the unenforceable is worse. Violations of territorial sovereignty are not by any means a minor problem, and neither are the gangsterism and violence that frequently accompany illicit trafficking of all kinds. At the same time, laws that are difficult or impossible to enforce can undermine the rule of law by the very fact that they are unenforceable. Poorly designed laws create entire new classes of crimes, and turn the law from a respected institution to an inconvenience to be violated at will, in the process undermining the credibility of the legal system. The police chiefs of Tucson and Phoenix as well as other cities have noted the practical problems posed by the new laws, particularly the erosion of the immigrant community’s trust in law enforcement.
Prohibition provides a salient historical example of such unintended consequences. When highly sought commodities — be they alcohol or cheap labor — are outlawed, there is the potential for lucrative black markets to emerge outside the purview of lawful regulation, taxation, and litigation. The results are abusive behavior, dangerous products, foregone revenue, corruption of the enforcement apparatus, and violence, all of which pose grave problems for the rule of law.
These costs, of course, might be justified if the alternatives are even worse. In the case of immigration, it comes down to a judgment between whether the costs of countering illegal immigration — including, police enforcement and the unintended consequence of a lucrative and unregulated black market for human trafficking — outweigh the costs of accepting it — including, strained social and public services, competitive pressures imposed on native unskilled labor, and cultural dilution from the massive influx of foreign persons, documented or otherwise.
-Charles
Image used under a Creative Commons attribution license from Flickr user mlhradio
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2 Responses to “The unintended consequences of prohibition”
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This post doesn’t even tell part of the story. Imm. laws are not that difficult to enforce, and that’s what most want. The problem is that corrupt pols won’t enforce the laws, far-left groups and the MSM keep trying to monkeywrench enforcement, and so on.
It’s like a shady mechanic taking all but one sparkplugs out and then saying “see, you need a new engine.”
The entire point of the post is that enforcement is nigh-impossible when there is a demand and a supply for millions and a black market eagerly participating in it. The new Arizona laws could be enforced, but they won’t likely accomplish anything.
You won’t choke illegal immigration off short of extremely repressive measures like a building a wall, mining the border, and requiring a national ID. You could try enforcing existing laws on the books, but imagine the police resources that would be required and the fact that you would be diverting the attention of law enforcement from crimes that are more obviously destructive to society, like murder, rape and so on.
“Not that difficult to enforce” is patently false. There’s a reason I’m comparing it to Prohibition. If you were to challenge me further, I’d point to examples such as municipal handgun bans and the prohibition of hard drugs as prohibitions that are almost impossible to maintain in practice. Sure, Chicago or D.C. (pre MacDonald and Heller) could try “enforcing” their handgun bans by searching every home and person -and what would be the cost to civil liberties and the burden on the police, and would people even stand for it? You could lock up all marijuana users, and (as has happened) you would have jails overflowing with millions of nonviolent offenders, an over-burdened law enforcement apparatus, and the continual destruction of the rule of law.