Imagine the deluge that would follow passage of the Schumer-Rubio amnesty-before-enforcement approach. That bill would legalize the illegal population up front, and promise that immigration security would be improved at some point in the future. Even if the extravagant promises of extra border agents, visa tracking, E-Verify, and the rest were actually kept, they would take years to put into place. In the meantime, new illegals would have a reasonable shot at getting in and lying their way to legal status. They’d be crazy not to try, especially since so much of the immigration agencies’ enforcement resources would be diverted to processing the millions and millions of illegal aliens applying for amnesty.

The lesson from the DREAM Deluge in South Texas: Enforcement First.