The United States is spending scores of billions of dollars to build fences and to train and enlarge the border patrol in an effort to stop illegal immigrants from entering the country, especially from south of the border. However, if an immigrant has few extra bucks and a bit of know-how, he or she can avoid the hot desert, the dangerous coyotes, and possible confrontations with the Minutemen or border patrol agents. They can simply fly to the US, enjoying complimentary drinks and munchies on one of the numerous airlines, and, once their visa has expired, they can just stay. No one knows exactly how many of the 300 million (I kid you not) visitors who came to the US simply refuse to leave when their time is up, but the number is very substantial. (Estimates vary between 60% to "only" 40% of all illegal immigrants).
We hear a lot about the dangers posed by the first group--they are frequently said to include drug dealers and terrorists. But we hear precious little about the second group. These "overstayers" include many who need only a passport of their home country to enter the US (27 European nations are members of the visa waver plan) and many others who have obtained a tourist visa, which are often easily obtainable. (All the 9/11 terrorists came to the US using one kind of a visa or another.)
Other nations have a variety of devices and policies in place to agitate against all unauthorized residents, without discriminating between the people who came via airplane and the folks who had to walk in. Some of these nations require people to carry an ID card proving that they are citizens. In Brussels, I witnessed police closing down the exits of a random block, and taking anyone who could not prove that they were legally in the country into custody. But, of course, most Americans find such ID cards anathema.
Many nations also require that people who rent or buy a home, apartment, or otherwise come to reside in their country, must register with the local police within 30 days or so, and require that landlords enforce this rule. Americans are sure to find such a requirement at least as distasteful as ID cards.
After 9/11, the newly created department of Homeland Security did begin to introduce a system, very widely used elsewhere, to check not only who is coming in, but also who has left. In this way at least the authorities would know that this or that visitor overstayed. However, when a pilot program showed all kinds of difficulties, the full implementation of this check-out system was deferred to some future date.
Moreover, one cannot but wonder how much good such a database would do in preventing visa holders from overstaying their welcome, as there is no way to find an overstayer in the vast USA without resorting to the kind of dragnets that are wholly un-American. Those few who get caught are simply asked to show up for deportation hearing, which few do. (Exceptions hold for those who have committed a crime, who may be detained and deported.)
One can be for a much higher level of immigration, one can favor granting citizenship to those already here, one can even wonder if immigration ought to be slowed down some. However, I cannot see any grounds to beat up on the immigrants from south of the border and the poorest lot while basically looking the other way as millions of others join the many who preceded them as illegal immigrants.
Amitai Etzioni is Professor of International Relations at the George Washington University and, most recently, the author of Security First: For A Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy (Yale University Press, 2007) www.securityfirstbook.com