Some states, notably Arizona and Alabama, have toiled mightily to thwart unauthorized immigrants at every turn, to make them miserable and unemployable. Others have decided that undocumented workers and their families are an asset to be nurtured, with benefits like more access to higher education, through in-state tuition and financial aid. They understand the reasoning of Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court decision asserting all children’s right to primary schooling, and have chosen not to squander their costly investment in an educated population.

California is a national leader in embracing the potential of its newcomers, with 26 new laws benefiting the undocumented, including a driver’s license law and one limiting local law-enforcement involvement in the federal immigration dragnet. New York City, under Mayor Bill de Blasio and Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito of the City Council, has made much progress, too, with programs like a municipal ID card. The message: We want you here.

(New York State should be a national leader in this swelling immigrant-rights movement, but it isn’t. Modest reforms, like a bill to grant college financial aid and scholarships to the undocumented, have languished in its underachieving Legislature, thwarted by a Republican-led Senate and a governor, Andrew Cuomo, who gives the issue lip service but has other priorities.)

The federal government has its own problems with coherence. It spends billions on its prison-and-deportation pipeline, yet the Homeland Security Department is not on the same page with itself. It is supposed to be using more discretion in whom it deports, but it is applying the policy erratically. A man who fits no sane definition of a threat — Max Villatoro, a Mennonite pastor in Iowa, a father of four citizen children — was recently deported to Honduras.

Meanwhile, the leader of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Sarah Saldaña, was recently asked at a congressional hearing whether she supported changing the law so that local police departments would be required to hold immigrants in custody for possible deportation beyond the time they would normally be released. “Amen,” she said, showing that she either didn’t know or didn’t accept that the Homeland Security Department actually opposes mandatory detainers. She later issued a clarification bringing her views in line with those of her boss, Jeh Johnson, the homeland security secretary, calling mandatory detainers “a highly counterproductive step” that would “lead to more resistance and less cooperation in our overall efforts to promote public safety.”