A response to comments about ICE

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read, disagree, agree, and comment. Charlie Larga and the staff here at Larga Towers appreciate the range of views here, even when they are sharply opposed.

One point I would like to clarify is this: for roughly twenty years now, under presidents from both parties, the United States has relied heavily on enforcement, detention, and deportation as the main tools of immigration policy. ICE has expanded, budgets have grown, raids have intensified at different moments, and millions of people have been removed under administrations of very different political colors. Yet the underlying problem has not been solved. If enforcement alone were the answer, it would have worked by now.

What has remained constant over those two decades is something rarely discussed honestly: large parts of the U.S. economy continue to depend on non-citizen labor, especially in agriculture, food processing, construction, hospitality, and domestic work. Employers need workers. Workers come because there is work. When there is no realistic legal pathway, an informal and often abusive system fills the gap. Raids and crackdowns may change the temperature for a while, but they do not change that basic reality.

That is why I believe the long-term solution is not simply “more ICE” or “less ICE,” but a different framework altogether.

Countries such as Canada and Australia have developed systems that, while far from perfect, are more transparent and more functional. They license employers who want to hire foreign labor. They require proper contracts, tax compliance, and worker protections. They impose serious penalties for abuse or circumvention. And they run visa systems designed to match real labor needs with legal entry.

• A clear, regulated system for employers to hire non-citizen workers legally
• Real enforcement aimed at large-scale labor abuse and fraud, not just individual workers
• Heavy penalties for companies that exploit undocumented labor through subcontractors and shell firms
• Faster, simpler, and more realistic work visa processes
• Basic labor protections so migrants are not trapped in fear and dependency

This would not eliminate migration, because nothing ever will, but it would shrink the shadow economy, reduce exploitation, and make enforcement more targeted and less theatrical. (It might also avoid things like the arrest and imprisonment of a 5-year old Ecuadorian boy whose father had applied for asylum in the US and who was not subject to a deportation order at the time.)

It would also take much of the heat out of the current cycle in which immigration policy swings wildly every few years, trust collapses, and it becomes an electoral issue, which it should not be.

I am not arguing that borders do not matter, or that laws should not be enforced. I am arguing that enforcement without reform has failed repeatedly, under presidents whom many of you supported and many of you opposed. That is not a partisan observation. It is simply what the record shows.

Reasonable people can disagree about tone, tactics, and politics. But after two decades of the same basic approach producing the same unresolved problems, it seems fair to ask whether a more practical, regulated, and economically honest system might serve everyone better: citizens, employers, migrants, and communities alike.

That was the spirit in which the article was written, and I am grateful to everyone who engaged with it seriously, whether they agreed with me or not.