The open-borders crowd is in a tizzy because of the Center's report yesterday showing that attrition works and that the number of illegal aliens can be reduced through comprehensive enforcement. (I also wrote about it at National Review Online.) All the big papers covered it, and opponents couldn't get their story straight — some denied there was a decline in the illegal population, others admitted there was but said it was because of the economy, and yet others said that the decline was indeed due to enforcement but that's a bad thing. I'm sure they'll all eventually get together and come up with a single story line, but for now they're afraid and befuddled.
The attrition strategy dodged a bullet yesterday, when the Democratic leadership in the House grudgingly agreed to reauthorize the E-Verify system for five more years without strings. Unfortunately, Sen. Jeff Sessions said yesterday (speaking at the press conference where I released the attrition report) that Bob Menendez still has a hold on E-Verify in the Senate, and it will disappear in November if it's not re-authorized. As bad as that would be, it could be a godsend issue for Republican Senate candidates, proving that their opponents' assurances of support for immigration enforcement are meaningless, and could hurt even those Democrats who really do support E-Verify.
