The latest report by the German Marshall Fund of the United States confirms what each of us in fact deals with every day: the feeling of frustration regarding the governmental immigration policy.

This feeling is shared on both sides of the Atlantic. According to the report, the majority of the American population (73 percent), 70 percent of the people in the British Isles, 61 percent of the population of Spain and 58 in France think that their respective governments do not deal well with the problem of immigration.

The reasons for this are easy to pinpoint. The dissatisfaction with federal immigration policy is related to the lengthy economic crisis, the fear of losing a job or the difficulty with finding one. In such situations, immigrants are perceived as competition on the job market. Their "otherness" and arguments that immigrants are a burden to the health care system inspire to reach for the easiest solutions.

The majority of the population in the United States and in European countries thinks that immigrants get – in terms of social benefits – more than they contribute to the state's coffers in tax revenue. Given that premise, it is enough to state that all undocumented immigrants should be thrown out of the country to get nation-wide approval.

There are many politicians who love to exploit the topic. On the assumption that undocumented immigrants break the law and take away jobs from citizens and legal residents, politicians introduced legislative projects similar to the "Arizona law" in as many as 15 states. The regulations are to make it easier for the police to catch the undocumented immigrant and pass them to the federal authorities who subsequently deport them. Another legislative idea is to change the interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in order to do away with the automatic birthright citizenship, which would put into question citizenship of children born to undocumented parents.

Putting aside whether these proposals are actually constitutional – the "Arizona law" was undermined by the first circuit court, while decisions of the Supreme Court regarding the 14th Amendment left the proponents of "tightening the screw" with tied hands – allegedly simple solutions can bring quite unexpected consequences.

Immigrant advocates fear the return to racial profiling policy, when foreign looks or accents may be an invitation to harassment and persecution. However, there are also other arguments. Threatening whole groups, especially in states heavily populated by Latinos, may result in whole communities turning down cooperation with local enforcement authorities, which may result in compromising public safety.

Proponents of mass deportations are also forgetting that undocumented immigrants constitute an integral part of the economic fiber in communities where they live – they consume goods and fill gaps in the labor market by working jobs nobody else wants to do.

Deportations are costly and it is unreasonable to expect that getting rid of a couple thousand or even a couple million people from a given country would boost the wellbeing of the remaining part of the society. That is not the way to go.