The issue of immigration, in the USA, has been the elephant in the room from time immemorial. This has been demonstrated by the manner in which it has formed a critical part of presidential campaigns and fallen at the very core of policy discussions over the past years. In the face of failures of past immigration policies, the desperation to manage the phenomenon has induced particular intricacy in the immigration enforcement issues, among other aspects of immigration and the associated policies. Consider the case of migration from Mexico to the United States. The fact that this particular immigration was central to the immediate past campaign alone is enough indication of the critical position that immigration occupies in the country, especially the Mexican immigration. According to Gonzalez-Berrera and Krogstad (2015), the year 2014 saw an approximated total of 11.7 million Mexican immigrants reside in the United States, with close to 50% of the total comprising illegal immigrants. In the same vein, the total deportation times to Mexico from the USA were 242, 456 times in the year 2015 with Mexico considered to be the largest source of immigrants in the USA. However, the report noted a decline (1 million), in the number of Mexican immigrants living in the USA. Nonetheless, Mexican immigration in the USA remains a pertinent issue and area of policy.
The case above, especially the somewhat insignificant decline in immigration rate and weight of the issue reveals three primary issues bedevilling immigration enforcement in the USA. The three issues include the lack of clarity in the definition of an illegal alien, who can detain them, and when they can be deported. The simple, and most common definition of an illegal alien across the policy networks in the USA is a resident without an immigrant or entry visa, or someone who has overstayed their welcome (Ngai, 2014). It is important to note that this definition leaves out those who have been smuggled into the country with fake visas or documents. The current law allows illegal immigrants to be detained at the borders by the border authorities, at the communities by the local law enforcement, as well as by the federal government in detention centres across the country. The process, therefore, is largely decentralized and this make it ineffective in that the immigrants may bribe, for instance, the border officials into smuggling them into the country. Aliens detained near the border or those who have stayed in the country for not more than 14 days can be reported immediately under the current policy; otherwise, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) take different ways to deport the illegal aliens depending on such factors as native country of the immigrant. Immigrants caught at the US-Mexico border can be deported instantly.