Lax enforcement of immigration laws lowers risk, leading to more willing to break those laws

Robert Pratt

Breitbart Texas reported that “Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick put the blame for the deaths of 10 illegal aliens packed in the back of an 18-wheeler on sanctuary cities.

“[Sunday’s] tragedy is why I made passing Senate Bill 4 to ban sanctuary cities — which is now law — a top priority,” the Republican Lt. Governor posted on Facebook. “Sanctuary cities entice people to believe they can come to America and Texas and live outside the law. Sanctuary cities also enable human smugglers and cartels.”

It is a stretch to say that in this specific case local sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants are responsible for these deaths however, in the general Patrick is right in that sanctuary policies, or any known non-enforcement policy, is a key ingredient in the encouragement of the lawless, illegal immigration machine.

All people have differing aversions to risk as individuals and the same applies in a larger social context. It’s not just individual criminals who make a risk assessment of each crime, a go- or no-go decision based on risk factors. Criminal enterprises, both formal and informal, make the same assessments.

Advertised Democrat and Leftwing policies of soft- or non-enforcement of immigration law, whether federal, state, or local, have the specific and combined effect of encouraging more and greater lawless behavior. This is  because such policies lower the level of perceived risk by both smugglers and other facilitators as well as the risk-reward calculation of individual immigrants.

A strong law-and-order stance is not inherently cruel or hateful yet such is portrayed so, especially about immigration. Law-and-order is the classical stance of an American with the recognition that certain laws may be wrong, unjust, or otherwise in need of changing through the proper legislative body.