TACO Time

President Donald Trump has directed immigration agents to pause workplace raids at hotels, farms and restaurants, news organizations reported over the weekend. But he said on social media last night he was ordering ICE to "expand efforts to detain and deport" undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and other large cities that "are the core of the Democrat power center."
Trump tells ICE to hit blue cities, spare farms, hotels

This, of course, should surprise no-one. With the rate of immigration to the United States at a low, there simply aren't enough people attempting to cross the border from Mexico to meet the targets that the Trump Administration has set. And that means the show of deportations that was desired can't be produced easily.

And the fact that the Administration wants something show is the important piece here. Because if the goal were simply to have lower numbers of migrants in the country, having ICE agents confront them in hotels, chase them across fields or ambush them at courthouses is woefully inefficient. Ramping up the penalties for employers is a much better plan. After all, the chance to work and make money is what is bringing the migrants, not the opportunity to be a charity case in a "sanctuary city." But that would mean putting pressure on employers, and some very large employers at that. And to the degree that those employers are politically savvy, it's a given that leaning on them would result in them pushing back against the President, which is something he doesn't want. He may be able to strongarm business leaders one at a time, but if he gave them a reason to unify against him, President Trump would have problems.

And so it's back to the culture wars. Red-state voters, who supposedly are the people who most want illegal immigrants gone, are going to keep the ones that they have, mainly because their absence isn't going to prompt anyone to increase wages and benefits to the point where the jobs vacated would be attractive to people born in the United States; including the children of recent immigrants. They don't do everything they can to put their children through college only for those children to be the most educated strawberry pickers one will ever meet. And so the focus will be on migrants living and working in the large Democratically-run cities. Other than looking to bait mayors and governors into fights, I can't imagine why. After all, most recent migrants are fully capable of going to other parts of the country to find work, given that they crossed international borders to get here in the first place. If Utah will be safer than California, expect people to, well, migrate.