Detailed 5-why root cause analysis for illegal immigration

Note: This page is referenced from my post, "Root causes on the back of an envelope." If you found it in some other way you are naturally welcome to read it. But before you comment, please go back and read the post that it came from so that you understand the context and what I am trying to do here.

What follows is a first pass at finding the root causes of illegal immigration, to show the kinds of factors that have to be considered. I guarantee there are plenty that I didn't think of, because I'm no expert. What I want to show is how to break down the question systematically. But my final output is no better than a quick scribble on the back of an envelope.

Asking the right question

The first step is to state the question correctly. "What causes illegal immigration to the US?" is not a useful question, because to use the 5-why methodology it should start with "Why." But "Why is there illegal immigration to the US?" is no better, because the question has to be about an action that we can analyze.

Start by recognizing that migration is (usually!) a voluntary act. (When migration is not voluntary, it is normally called "trafficking" and it's a different kind of problem. In what follows I will address only the voluntary case.) Therefore, when we ask why someone—let's call him "N"—migrates, part of the answer is that he wants to. And then we have to ask why he wants to.

But that's not all. N might want to migrate to Mars, but he hasn't yet. Why not? Because he can't get there, so he migrates to the United States instead. Therefore another part of the answer is that N migrates to the US because he can. And then we have to ask why he can.

We're still not done. Our original question was not, after all, "What causes immigration to the US?" but rather "What causes illegal immigration to the US?" In other words, part of the answer has to explain to us why N chose to enter the country illegally instead of following the legal procedures.

This means that our original question is reworded so that it addresses a migrant named N, and looks like this:

Why did N migrate to the US illegally?

And there are three initial answers, each of which defines a branch that we have to explore. Then the set of all the endpoints discovered in all three branches is our list of root causes.

1. Because N wanted to migrate to the US.
2. Because N was able to enter the US.
3. Because [some reason still to be discovered] made N decide to enter illegally instead of legally.

In what follows I will discuss each of these topics in paragraphs. Then I will summarize the results in outline format, so that the logical relations are clearer.

1. Why did N want to migrate to the US?

As I noted in an earlier post, a Congressional Research Service report acknowledges that "motives [for migration] vary by individual," but pretty obviously the basic reason has to be that N thinks life will be better in the US than it was back home. More exactly, this reason decomposes into two statements:

1. Because things were bad in N's home country.
2. Because N thought things would be better in the US.

Notice that the first of these reasons is the point that the Administration chose to analyze as part of their Root Causes Strategy. (I discuss this analysis at length in an earlier post.) In particular, they identified four broad categories of root cause: socioeconomic conditions, natural disasters, security conditions, and governance. But when the Administration implemented plans to address these causes, the results were such as to suggest strongly that this is not an actionable cause. The world is just too big. Therefore I won't bother breaking it out into its categories here. We can consider this first point a root-cause as-is.

The second point deserves more discussion. Why did N think things would be better in the US? I think there have to be at least two answers.

In the first place, whatever daily frustrations it might involve, life is often better for residents of the US than for residents of many other countries. In many ways the US is a good place to live. For victims of political oppression, it is relatively free. For victims of unpredictable violence, it is relatively safe. For victims of economic deprivation, it is prosperous. The streets may not be paved with gold, but compared to many other spots on the globe, it is an attractive destination. I think we can afford to accept this simply as a fact, without asking for further reasons.

In the second place, N must have thought that he could make a life here. Be the American life never so good, N wouldn't bother to come if he didn't think he could join it. But what does it take to make a life here? At the very least, N must have thought that he could find a place to live, and he must have thought that he could find a job.

Why would N expect to find a place to live? Because the US is a big country with a large population. N surely knew before setting out that there is a long history of people coming to the US and finding a place to live. It is also possible that N knew friends or family who had already made the trip.

Why would N expect to find a job? Again, the US is a big country with a large population and a comparatively thriving economy. The US is famous as a place where people come to make their fortunes. And N might well have known friends, family, or at any rate other countrymen who came to the US and found jobs.

Have we really covered all the cases? Clearly every immigrant needs a place to live, but what about a job? Aren't there cases of immigrants who are privately wealthy and don't need jobs? Yes, of course there are. But in general any migrant wealthy enough that he can afford not to work also follows the legal entry protocols. He has too much to lose in case he gets caught. So in this analysis we can ignore the case of the wealthy, leisured migrant.

2. Why was N able to enter the US?

How did N physically get into the country? Let's step through this. Since teleportation is not practical, he must have arrived by land, sea, or air. By land, he must have walked up to the border and then stepped across it. By sea, he must have swum or sailed until he reached a beach or bank or harbor, and then clambered ashore. By air, he must have boarded an aircraft somewhere else, flown into US airspace, landed on US soil, and debarked.

Each of these options introduces further possibilities, so that the chart of possible routes gets complex quickly. But we can simplify the picture if we divide it up differently. Instead of treating land, sea, and air separately, let's consider just two possibilities that include all the other cases: 

1. N came into the country through an official port of entry, which was staffed by officials whose job includes (among other things) scrutinizing entrants.
2. N came into the country somewhere else—namely, at an empty spot not staffed by any officials (or, probably, anyone else).

A port of entry includes all designated border crossings (by land), all designated harbors (by sea), and all commercial airports (by air). If N came into the country through a port of entry, his primary obstacles would have been human and procedural. That is, there would have been humans there to stop him, for example, and ask for his papers: passport, visa, that sort of thing. And they would have detained him until he answered their questions to their satisfaction. 

So in case N came in through a port of entry, the question "Why was he able to enter the US?" becomes a question about how he got past the official staff. One possibility is that he had the right papers, although in that case his entry was legal and therefore out of scope for this discussion. (There is a special case, in which N enters the country legally but then remains here illegally. I will address that case below.) If he didn't have the right papers, there are (I think) broadly two categories of possibility.

1. Maybe the official staff failed to detect that he was not authorized to enter the country. For example, he might have been using a fake identification, or he might have had a convincing cover story. But in any event, the system for finding and isolating illegal entrants might not have been sensitive enough.
2. Or maybe the staff tried to detain him but he was able to get away before they had completed their investigation. In other words, the system for holding him and preventing his further travel might not have been robust enough.

If N did not come into the country through a port of entry, then he came in at an empty spot, where there were no people. (Of course it is possible that he crossed the border in a spot where he was observed by private citizens who were not official border staff. But on the whole I think that is the least likely case, and it introduces no new theoretical problems. The obstacles N would have encountered in that case are simply a combination of the obstacles he would have encountered in the other two cases.)

Empty spots are of two kinds: those with barriers, and those with no barriers.

For an example of an empty spot with a barrier, consider (on land) a place with no human habitation where the border is marked by a wall. An empty spot with a barrier (at sea) might be a stretch of beach with no human habitation, but where the Coast Guard regularly patrols the surrounding waters. An empty spot with a barrier (by air) could be almost anywhere that a private plane can land, provided that the surrounding airspace is regularly monitored by civilian or military authorities.

An empty spot with no barrier is even easier. On land, it's a place where the border runs but there is nothing to stop someone walking across it. At sea, it's a beach where the waters are not regularly patrolled. By air, it's a stretch where a plane can land, and where no one monitors the airspace.

If N came into the country at an empty spot with a barrier, our next question is how he managed to pass the barrier. There are many possible answers here, because barriers might be of many types; and if we are not careful we could easily get lost in the weeds. On the other hand, if we are trying to understand how illegal immigration is possible at all, we don't have to go into so much detail. It will always be possible to come into the country at an empty spot, provided that there are still some empty spots without barriers. And there will always be empty spots without barriers!

Why will there always be empty spots without barriers? Because the US is a very large country. The US has long land borders: 5525 miles with Canada, and 1954 miles with Mexico. Many of them stretch through inhospitable terrain. It would be very difficult to close or police all these borders. Likewise, the US has long coastlines, approximately 12,383 miles in all, or nearly twice the length of the land borders. It would be very difficult to patrol all those coastlines. What is more, even if a coastline is patrolled some boats can occasionally get through. Barriers can make crossing the border more difficult. But there is no way to make it impossible.

At the beginning of this section we identified two possible ways that N could have entered the US: at a port of entry, or at an empty spot. There is a third topic that should be mentioned in this regard, parallel to those two. It is not exactly a route along which N could enter the US, but the relevant causes are similar to the other causes in this section. So with your indulgence I will address it here.

3. Once N was past the barriers (human or otherwise), he was not found later and pulled back.

In other words, an additional "cause" to explain how N got physically into the country is that—once past the border—he eluded the authorities and was not deported.

Obviously many illegal immigrants are not so lucky. We all know that the immigration authorities do in fact find people who have entered the country illegally, and remove them. At the same time, we also know that the rate of return is less than 100%. If it were guaranteed to be 100%, nobody would ever ask to identify a root cause for illegal immigration, because the situation would be completely reversible.

Therefore we have to ask, why was N never found and pulled back? And here, I think, there are two answers that interact with each other.

On the one hand, as mentioned before, the US is a big country with a large population. There is plenty of room to get lost.

And on the other hand, there is no reliable way to track someone once he is out of official sight. Like returning a fish to the ocean, he can swim away and he is gone.

One more major topic.

3. Why did N choose to enter the country illegally instead of legally?

Cheer up! We're almost done! This should be the shortest topic of the three, because we have already dealt with some of the elements earlier.

Strictly speaking, there are three possible ways that N could have made a decision which resulted in his illegal presence in the US.

1. N might have entered the country legally on a visa, and then chose to overstay his visa.
2. N might have appealed for asylum, and then chose to violate the terms of his temporary stay.
3. N might have chosen from the outset to enter the country illegally. 

Why would he have done any of these things?

We can answer Case 1 and Case 2 together. In either of those cases, I think the answer has to have two parts—both of which we have seen before.

1. N wanted to migrate to the US. (See General Topic 1 above.)
2. N knew that there is no reliable way to track someone once he is out of official sight. (See the very last point under General Topic 2 above.) Therefore he decided to risk making his stay permanent without bothering to ask the authorities for permission.

This is easy enough, and leaves us with only one case yet to answer. Why would N ever have chosen from the outset to enter the country illegally?

I am sorry to say that the answer is very simple: Because the legal procedure for immigration into the US is complicated, time-consuming, and expensive! Illegal entry into the US is much riskier than legal entry, but also far faster.

Is that a root cause, or do we have to ask "Why?" one more time to drill deeper? I don't know. If there's a deeper explanation underlying this point, I have no idea what it is. Ask your Congressman.

Summary

The argument above is very long. Let me summarize it for you in outline form. The stop sign 🛑 represents the end point of a specific chain of causes, and therefore a potential root cause. (I say "potential" because we still have to check whether the point is actionable.)

1. Why did N want to migrate to the US?
1. Because things were bad in N's home country. 🛑
2. Because N thought things would be better in the US.
1. Because the US is a good place to live. 🛑
2. AND because N thought he could build a life here.
1. Because N thought he could find a place to live in the US.
1. Because the US is a big country with a large population. 🛑
2. Because N thought he could find a job in the US.
1. Because lots of people find jobs in the US. 🛑 .
2. Why was N able to enter the US?
1. N came into the US at an official port of entry.
1. The system for finding and isolating illegal entrants might not have been sensitive enough. 🛑
2. The system for detaining illegal entrants might not have been robust enough.🛑 
2. OR ELSE, N came into the US at an empty spot.
1. There will always be empty spots along the border that have no barriers to entry.
1. The US has very long land borders. 🛑
2. AND the US has very long coastlines. 🛑
3. AND IN ANY EVENT once N was past the border, he was not found later and pulled back.
1. Because the US is a big country. (See 1.2.2.1.1 above.) 🛑
2. And because there is no reliable way to track someone once he is out of official sight. 🛑
3. Why did N enter the US illegally?
1. N might have entered the country legally on a visa, and then overstayed.
2. OR N might have appealed for asylum, and then violated his terms.
1. Because N wanted to migrate to the US. (Re-enter the chain at point 1 above.)
2. And because there is no reliable way to track someone once he is out of official sight. (See 2.3.2 above.) 🛑
3. OR ELSE N chose to enter the country illegally. 
1. Because the legal entry procedure is difficult and takes a long time. 🛑

On this analysis, our final list of potential root causes (with the noise and duplication stripped out) looks like this.

Points that are not actionable:

• Things are bad in N's home country.
• The US is a big country with a large population.
• The US has very long land borders. 
• The US has very long coastlines.

Points that might be actionable:

• The US is a good place to live. 
• Lots of people find jobs in the US.  
• Filters at the border did not detect N. 
• Procedures at the border did not detain N. 
• There is no reliable way to track someone once he is out of official sight. 
• The legal entry procedure is very difficult and takes a long time. 

I will discuss in the main blog post, "Root causes on the back of an envelope," what it might look like to take action on the points that are possibly actionable.