I actually have the answer to that question.
Over the past few years, I have participated in this debate, I have supported the presidents proposals in the face of severe criticism from most on this forum.
Time and time again, they bring up the '86 reforms and how the same promises of a fix were made then and the plan failed. They use the porosity of the border as if it were the only reason the '86 reforms failed, and that entire premise is faulty in a number of ways.
First, we had increased border security since 1986, on several occasions. each of those efforts ended with more and more illegals who crossed and then became essentially trapped on the American side of the border for fear of getting caught coming back in after a Xmas visit during the off season, and subsequently screwing up their application for a Green card, so the rational thing was to stay, even though the harvest season was over, and this is how social service began to feel the pinch of the increased number.
This is just one of the unintended consequences of increasing border security without addressing the underlying problems.
The '86 reforms failed largely due to failure to regulate the business environment. The increased border security and various tweaks in the code to ramp up penalties for illegal entry caused a new industry of fake documentation, coyote human traffickers, and all the nuances in between. it caused a large segment of employment for illegals to move underground where the Fed has no visibility, and no way to interdict the human trafficking or detect it.
The courts also extended rights to the illegal and the system broke down under the numerical strain. This happened with far fewer illegals then we have today and has continued.
So........It seems obvious to me, that border security alone was indicated long ago as being a failure, and doing the same thing again, hoping for a different result is foolhardy logic.
We have to address it all, and at the same time, shifting resources where needed, and setting of the logistics in a big way to deal with a big problem.
The pressures on the border must be relieved, so that border protection does not take all the resources we have. We must address business regulation, the courts, the banking industries and at the same time, refrain from damaging the delicate local and state economies, or nobody in these affected areas will participate in the reforms, in fact they will fight them and it will be all for nothing again.
This problem is indeed complicated in nature, and requires some comprehensive solutions that can be easily explained and managed.
A huge and very difficult task lies ahead, and we must succeed or we will end up with a huge and damaging unassimilated sub-culture that could upset our entire way of life here and cause repercussions in every area of the economic, political and social structures. It all has to be addressed simultaneously and collectively for anything to work.
Thank you. That is exactly what those of us being flamed and silenced by the Build-the-Wall crowd keep trying to say.