An immigration think tank has proposed a unique method of aiding President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts, supplementing typical enforcement efforts by relying on “snitches” to limit the employment opportunities of illegal immigrants.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a report detailing a plan to force “self-deportations” of illegal immigrants. The proposal suggests a minor amendment to the tax code aimed at punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants by allowing private citizens to sue businesses that do this, forcing them to comply with the E-Verify system and limiting the employment opportunities for migrants.
The proposal, authored by Ajay Gupta, acknowledges Trump’s enforcement efforts but argues the president will be “limited in scope” when it comes to traditional deportation methods, which could be supplemented by forcing many illegal migrants to leave the country voluntarily.
“Notwithstanding its ‘shock and awe,’ a forcible deportation drive is unlikely to make a dent in that vast population,” the report argues. “For this, the law against hiring these aliens would have to be strictly enforced.”
People board a U.S. military aircraft. The White House announced that “deportation flights have begun” in the U.S. (White House)
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The report cites Britain’s 19th century plan to eradicate child labor as an example of the concept’s success, noting that the country was able to force compliance with labor laws even though it was limited by resources and budgetary constraints.
Britain’s effort relied on private enforcement of the law, the report notes, something the U.S. proposal would also do by allowing private citizens to sue employers of illegal immigrants.
“The proposal would impose a punitive tax on all who pay for the personal services or labor of unauthorized aliens and let private citizens sue to collect this tax,” the report argues. “The ubiquity of snitches, as compared to the distant possibility of government action, is likely to put the fear of God in employers. Most, if not all, would then willingly embrace E-Verify, a free online tool for verifying a prospective hire’s work-authorization status.”
According to the report, the result would make it much more difficult for illegal immigrants to obtain employment, which “should induce large numbers of unauthorized aliens to return home.”
The CIS proposal is not the first time such an idea has been floated in the U.S. Former Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, advocated for a similar measure during his 2012 bid for president.
Donald Trump headlines a Republican National Committee spring donor retreat in Palm Beach, Fla., May 4, 2024. (Donald Trump 2024 campaign)
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“The answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here,” Romney said during a Republican primary debate in 2012.
Romney’s proposal was widely mocked at the time, including by Trump, who called the idea “maniacal” and “crazy,” according to a 2012 NewsMax report.
But Romney’s idea also had high-profile defenders, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who now serves in Trump’s administration as secretary of state.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, speaks to members of the press on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., June 1, 2023. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“I’ve never understood self-deportation, in what the governor has presented, as a policy. It’s not a policy,” Rubio said a few months after Romney’s initial proposal, according to an ABC News Report. “I think it’s an observation of what people will do in a country that’s enforcing its immigration laws.”
According to the CIS report, a renewed push for self-deportation could be accomplished by amending current tax law through budget reconciliation, which would only require a simple majority vote in the Senate and potentially bypass Democratic efforts to block the legislation.
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“Republicans today have the legislative and executive authority to fully implement the proposal presented here. This implementation would require adding little more than some 650 words to a budget reconciliation bill. And its consequence would force all employers nationwide to comply with E-Verify,” the CIS report concluded.
“If GOP lawmakers in control of both chambers of Congress refrain from even this undemanding legislative task, their electorate would be justified in concluding that they accord a higher priority to not placing even the slightest added burden on employers than they do on removing illegal aliens.”
