But it's more an up-versus-down issue because the research has shown that opinion leaders, whether they're elected officials, journalists, business leaders - it's academics, religious leaders - they have dramatically different views on immigration. A

Well, nobody's being deported - nobody - practically. And so what the people down there getting is the American government is telling us that you're not going to be able to stay. But, in fact, they're letting almost everybody stay. And so what they're trying to do is show that at least some people are going to get deported.

The effects of illegal immigration aren't that different from those of legal immigration —an illiterate Central American farmer with a green card is just as unsuited for a 21st-century economy as an illiterate Central American farmer without a green card.

Well, because we're talking here about people who've been ordered deported and the administration has done nothing about actually making sure that they go home. This is theater, I think, for two audiences - one probably for the American public to some degree, to make it seem as though the administration is taking this renewed surge of Central Americans seriously.

Well, enforcement theater is OK if it's reality theater. In other words, obviously, you want to make it clear, you want to make people see that the law is being enforced.

But the question is - are we deporting a couple hundred people for show or are we actually making a serious effort to remove everybody who's got a final order of removal? When I say enforcement theater, what I mean is a kind of pretend enforcement.

By holding down natural wage growth in labor-intensive industries, immigration serves as a subsidy for low-wage, low-productivity ways of doing business, retarding technological progress and productivity growth.