Republicans will have the next two years to set the immigration agenda in the House of Representatives. If their legislation looks anything like their campaign ads, there will be no way for illegal immigrants to get right with the law and no real solution to the problem of illegal immigration. Just a national doubling-down on enforcement, with still more border fencing and immigration agents, workplaces locked down, and states and localities setting police dragnets on what always was  and still ought to be  federal turf.

That hard-line approach mocks American values. It is irresponsibly expensive. It is ineffective.

Two of its architects will be leaders in the House Judiciary Committee, where immigration legislation is drafted: the next chairman, Lamar Smith of Texas; and Steve King of Iowa, who is in line to run the immigration subcommittee. Mr. Smith was the author of a 1996 law that bulked up enforcement and drastically increased deportations by limiting legal immigrants’ access to the justice system. It greatly expanded deportable offenses, and left many immigrants unable even to have their cases reviewed by a judge.

The 1996 law and the billions subsequently thrown at border barriers and mass deportations have failed to deter illegal immigration. But this has not deterred Mr. Smith and Mr. King, who want to go further.

They support Arizona’s noxious efforts to give its law enforcement officers freer rein to demand people’s papers. Mr. King has gone so far as to defend racial profiling (which is illegal) as “legitimate law enforcement.” Both support the rapid imposition of E-Verify, an error-plagued electronic immigration database that every citizen would have to clear before being allowed to work.