Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies ("CIS") and she's now advising Donald Trump on immigration. The problem for the U.S. is that Vaughan and her cohorts from the CIS - such as Mark Krikorian - have been opposing illegal immigration for years with little to show for it. CIS and others are aware of smart ways to oppose illegal immigration that would be devastatingly effective, but they refuse to use them.

Other NGOs - the NRA, CAIR, the American Civil Liberties Union, AARP, and so on manage to get their way in many cases. Whether you disagree with those groups or not, there's no denying they're effective. CIS is not in any way effective; they just don't have the smarts, sanity, and dedication of the other groups. Once again: that isn't about whether a group says things you agree with, it's about whether a group can get things done or not. And, CIS clearly cannot.

Now, Vaughan and CIS are helping harm the U.S. in a direct way. From [1]:

"The Trump administration can largely get the results it is seeking and a real meaningful end to most of these sanctuary policies through a combination of carrots and sticks," said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, who has advised the Trump transition team on immigration enforcement options. "The point is not to go around whacking all these little cities and counties, it's to get them to do the right thing. And for the die-hards, to confront them."

What most of us learn in grade school or earlier is that different people have different ideas of what "the right thing" is. Vaughan wants immigration restrictions and I agree although I'd go further. However, there are plenty of other people who have a different conception of what "the right thing" is. And, unless Trump becomes something close to a dictator, they're going to resist his immigration moves. And, they have plenty of carrots and sticks of their own. They can tie up Trump's immigration actions in the courts, use the media to propagandize against his actions, pulls strings in Congress, and so on.

For instance, top sanctuary cities have already stated that they'll file lawsuits. No doubt their mayors have let their Congressional representatives know what they think, and those representatives - most of them Democrats - will fight to keep Trump from withdrawing money from their constituents or will disburse the money in other ways. Not to mention the fact that most funds Trump could withhold are a drop in the bucket for major cities.

What's needed is to make enabling illegal immigration politically toxic. For a tangible example, pointing out - to his likely voters - how Bill de Blasio worked to help crooked banks profit from illegal activity might have caused him to lose and would blunt the arguments he's currently making to keep New York City a sanctuary city. Showing his talking points wrong in a way that will resonate with his supporters would reduce his power and his ability to enable illegal immigration, but Vaughan and others in the Trump/Breitbart sphere are only capable of doing things in the most lunkhead ways possible.

Using a "stick" against New York City isn't going to work too well for President Trump, here in the real world. However, making smart, sane, pro-American, big tent arguments against pro-sanctuary city mayors would achieve the objective and with far less cost.

Not only are Jessica Vaughan and CIS incapable of doing smart things like that, they've already rejected them in favor of their tactics that have rarely succeeded.

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[1] usatoday . com/story/news/world/2017/01/25/donald-trump-sanctuary-cities-immigration/97043106/