Spanish American philosopher George Santayana essentially defined fanaticism as “redoubling your efforts long after you have forgotten your goal.” That is an increasingly useful way to think about current U.S. immigration policy. Most Americans believe that immigration enforcement should involve controlling the border, upholding the law, removing people who genuinely threaten public safety and maintaining a system Americans can trust. But the Trump administration has long since past those goals. Immigration enforcement in Trump’s America increasingly looks like an end in itself, measured by arrests, detention capacity and deportation totals. Restraint is viewed by the White House as weakness. Courts have become obstacles. In short, we have transitioned from genuine enforcement into the realm of fanaticism.

What is missing is an understanding of a stubborn reality: America will never remove every illegal immigrant. There has always been, are now, and always will be instances of immigrants in America who have crossed the border illegally, overstayed their visas, lost status or made unsuccessful asylum claims. It is a fact that no matter how much more money, officers, judges and detention centers are added to enforcement, illegal immigration will never totally disappear. Indeed, the closer we get to deporting all illegal immigrants, the more impossibly expensive the cost will be.

That understanding is not surrender. It is sanity.

To draw an analogy, we do not expect perfection from our judicial law system. America has never eliminated all murders, robberies or fraud. However, we do identify serious offenders, use our finite resources intelligently and keep improving the system. We do our best. Could we do better? Yes, but that is no argument for condemning the system we have. Immigration should be handled the same way. America does not need a perfect immigration system. It needs a reasonable one.

Mission Impossible

When I wrote in Forbes in 2024 that Trump’s proposed deportation of roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants was “mission impossible,” the argument was mathematical, logical and legal. The challenge is even greater and broader today.

The most recent statistics we have from the Centre for Migration Studies using 2024 data estimated there were approaching 15 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Since then that number has declined somewhat. Nonetheless, whatever the exact number may now be, there are millions of people whose lives bear little resemblance to the dark image of illegal border-crossers invading America. That is because there are 4.4 million longtime undocumented workers who have lived here for a decade or more, 4.2 million parents living with American-citizen children, nearly half a million DACA recipients who innocently came here as children with their parents, about 2 million asylum applicants, and more than a million people admitted or protected under humanitarian programs that the government itself subsequently withdrew. Does keeping all these people in an eternal penalty box make sense?

So what will the consequence of a “mass deportation” of such individuals be like?

In a 2024 study, the American Immigration Council estimated that a one-time effort to remove about 13.3 million people would cost at least $315 billion. Stretching the operation over more than a decade at one million deportations per year would cost almost $968 billion. That’s just the economics.

But a deportation order does not automatically put someone on an airplane. Foreign governments must often verify nationality, provide travel documents and accept their nationals. Some cooperate; some delay; some resist. Meanwhile, new violations continue. The finish line moves while America runs toward it. That is the folly of immigration fanaticism: the closer government supposedly gets to victory, the more resources it must sacrifice chasing something it can never really achieve. There has to be another way.

Besides, People Are Not Just Numbers

Mass deportation treats millions of different people as interchangeable. They are not. Violent felons, gang members, serious repeat offenders and national-security threats should be priorities. But the numbers indicate that far less then 1 million undocumented immigrants fall into this category. Virtually everyone can probably agree that such individuals need to be deported. On that much we can agree. Fine. But then come the visa overstayers, longtime workers, parents of American citizens, Dreamers, asylum applicants and people who once held lawful humanitarian protection. What about them?

Take the case of long-time residents of America. Pew estimated that 4.3 million unauthorized adults had already lived in the United States __for at least 18 years __by 2023. Eighteen years is a long time. People marry, raise children, work, pay taxes and become part of communities. True, that does not erase their immigration violation. But it does create equities a rational legal system should consider. Law distinguishes among degrees of wrongdoing. Immigration should too.

When Enforcement Becomes The Name Of The Game

Once an administration promises deportation on a colossal scale, protections that slow the process begin to look like “obstacles.” Take immigration courts for example. Today, the immigration court backlog is way over 3 million cases. OK, not every removal requires a full hearing. But as the Congressional Research Service’s Constitution Annotated explains, immigrants who have entered the United States generally fall within the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause—even when they entered unlawfully—and many have claims or defenses requiring individualized consideration. True, due process can be slow. But that is partly the point. The Constitution was not designed to make government maximally efficient at exercising power. It was designed to make government careful when exercising power over human beings.

The danger is no just theoretical. In Minneapolis this year, U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot during separate federal immigration-enforcement encounters. The cases have raised serious questions about enforcement. Immigration enforcement cannot become a zone in which ordinary standards of accountability matter less. Nor can detention. Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights reported 52 deaths in ICE custody during the first 500 days of Trump’s second administration. Whatever the cause of individual deaths, a larger detention system requires greater transparency and oversight.

Haiti raises the same collision between ideology and judgment. The Supreme Court’s June decision in Mullin v. Doe allowed the administration’s termination of Haitian Temporary Protected Status to proceed. Yet the State Department currently tells Americans: “Do not travel to Haiti for any reason,” citing crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest and limited health care. OK, TPS is temporary. But there is something wrong about telling Americans Haiti is too dangerous to visit while preparing to return longtime Haitian U.S. residents there. Let’s get serious here.

The Rule Of Law Runs Both Ways

It is true that Trump’s defenders can point to an important accomplishment. Customs and Border Protection reports that illegal border crossings have fallen to levels not seen in decades. Effective border enforcement is necessary. It is true that a country that cannot control its borders loses public confidence in legal immigration itself. But the rule of law does not mean maximum enforcement at any cost. It imposes obligations on government too. The results must include an examination of how they were achieved as well.

Courts must be obeyed. It is Congress that must adopt immigration laws. Due process cannot be dismissed as bureaucratic clutter. The lives of human beings cannot be reduced to a deportation scoreboard. The Supreme Court recognized that fact in Noem v. Abrego Garcia, when it required the federal government to facilitate the release of a man improperly sent to El Salvador and ensure his case proceeded as it otherwise would have.

There Is A Better Way

It begins by abandoning fanaticism and returning to the harder work of governing: enforce the law where enforcement matters most such as with hardened criminals. But distinguish among different other kinds of cases, exercise judgment where judgment is necessary and never sacrifice America’s constitutional inheritance merely to improve a deportation statistic no government can permanently perfect. This is not a call to return to “open borders.” It is a call for reasonableness.

So remove violent criminals, serious repeat offenders, gang members and national-security threats first. Keep the border secure. Improve visa tracking and asylum adjudication. Penalize employers who side-step the immigration rukes or knowingly exploit unauthorized workers. Expand lawful immigration where the economy demonstrably needs workers.

But also, deal honestly with long-term residents whose lives are intertwined with America. Create a path towards __earned legalization __for long-term residents who pass rigorous criminal and security checks involving their registration, their tax compliance, their paying fines where appropriate, and including a waiting period and perhaps doing meaningful community service to deserve redemption.

That is accountability without pointless destruction.

The purpose of the rule of law is not to maximize government power.

It is to preserve a free society.