Mailing NCAA Bracket/Lotto Ticket or Crossing U.S. Border Illegally: Which Carries Greater Penalty?

Under 18 U.S. Code Section 1953, “Interstate Transportation of Wagering Paraphernalia,” it is a crime to mail across state lines your NCAA bracket or lotto ticket. It is punishable for up to five years in prison.

8 U.S. Code Section 1325(a), “improper entry by alien”— quoting from the statute— carries civil fines that range from $50 to $250, and the possibility of a six month jail term (as a misdemeanor offense). That is for first offenders. Repeat offenses are low-level felonies.

From June 2017 - June 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s agency has prosecuted 4,174 border-crossers as criminals.

Why is U.S. immigration law so lenient? The main answer is that it is very expensive to hold criminal trials and also jail people who cross the border in violation of the law. Also, aliens have constitutional rights; however, using civil law mechanisms, these rights are much less of an obstacle.

There is one more relevant aspect to the developing caravan crisis story. By law, the U.S. military cannot enforce domestic laws. This is a matter for the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Secretary, not for Gen. Mattis in his role as Secretary of Defense. 
Military forces that are being sent today to the border are engaging in activities that are similar to responding to a hurricane: they are preparing to house thousands of migrants. They are not preparing for a military engagement.

One sure bet: Don’t mail your lotto ticket or NCAA bracket. And if the rhetoric ever cools over immigration, raise the civil fine to a level that makes crossing unlawfully so expensive that it is a real deterrent.