Self-Deportation
Illegal Aliens Voluntarily Leaving
Daniel Muniz

A very unusual development is occurring in illegal alien communities across the nation. Among the people who are in this country illegally, there are a number of them who are now returning to their home countries with the intention of never coming back. And there are also many more who are also seriously considering leaving the United States even though they have been illegally living here for a number of years.

Below are a few comments from illegal aliens about this new trend:

Stepped up federal enforcement of our immigration laws, albeit minuscule in scope, is finally starting to have an impact. And to the chagrin of many local politicians, raids by federal officials at places where illegal immigrants are employed at is now becoming commonplace. Although these operations are only executed on a very small scale, the federal government has now been taking enforcement of existing laws seriously.

In addition, there have been an increasing number of states and municipalities that are now apprehending and turning in illegal aliens to federal authorities for deportation. Such cooperation was practically non-existent years ago.

Also, many employers are also starting to feel the heat so they too have began laying off their illegal workers in order to avoid entanglements with the law.

In the past, illegal immigrants had absolutely nothing to worry about. Unscrupulous employers who were willing to hire them were plentiful so finding illegal work was not difficult. But also, the stigma of being “illegal” was quietly removed from the press. The media now labels them as “undocumented workers” while politicians from both political parties kept inviting them to enter our country and to stay here indefinitely.

In fact, so many illegal aliens really didn’t see themselves as doing anything wrong because they had so much moral support from powerful politicians including past and present presidents. In additional, numerous governmental services opened their doors to them and so many non-profit organizations welcomed their arrival.

And the tiny number of illegal aliens who were deported by the government could easily return to America and continue their lives here as if nothing had ever happened. In fact, petty criminals also never had much to worry about. There were so many district attorneys across the country that immediately dropped most if not all criminal charges once they discovered that the offenders were illegal immigrants. Even violent criminals were still able to illegally reside in the United States with ease after they got out of prison.

But times have changed.

No longer do a lot of illegal aliens see themselves as having an inalienable “right” to break our nation’s laws.

In fact, the highly publicized stories of so many illegal workers being detained and deported have spooked the millions who are here illegally. And perhaps the biggest nightmare has been the deportation of the parents of “anchor babies.” Illegal aliens who had their children born in the United States (courtesy of the taxpayer) falsely assumed that the government would never separate them from their offspring who now had legal U.S. citizenship. But they were sadly mistakenly when the federal authorities did take such action.

In all honesty, I was skeptical of the concept of self-deportation. Our immigration laws had dismally failed and I personally felt that the infrastructure of our bureaucracy was so woefully inadequate, that no amount of effort would suffice. I was wrong.

Even the severely limited improvement of enforcement is having a tremendously harsh psychological impact, courtesy of the media. In fact, by the press trying to sensationalize the government ripping parents away from their children, it inadvertently ended up playing into the hands of immigration reformers. The enormous adverse publicity shocked the illegal alien community out of their smug complacency in that they now know that the same thing could happen to them.

Employers also wanted to avoid the bad publicity too.

So a little bit of extra enforcement is prompting illegal immigrants to leave the country on their own accord. Now imagine what could happen if these efforts were tripled and quite a few additional measures were implemented. All of a sudden, self-deportation suddenly becomes the only option left for the illegal aliens who want to avoid getting arrested and detained. For decades, the people who were here illegally never really had to fear the law but this new emphasis on enforcement have changed everything.

As a result, I am skeptical no more. Illegal aliens will self-deport when enough pressure is applied.

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