On the few occasions when the political establishment has even acknowledged the existence of the attrition plan to deal with illegal aliens (see the link), they've for the most part falsely claimed it wouldn't work or falsely claimed it was "cruel". That's despite hundreds of thousands of Mexican illegal aliens already choosing the leave the U.S. voluntarily.

Now, buffoonish Texas governor, ex-presidential candidate, and illegal immigration supporter Rick Perry has implicitly admitted that attrition would work. And, at least two establishment media sources so far have joined him.

None of them are outright promoting attrition, but they are admitting that illegal aliens aren't in the U.S. permanently but will leave if given the right inducement.

Reid Wilson of the Washington Post offers "Rick Perry thinks Mexico may have just solved America’s immigration problem" ( peekURL.com/z2TkLak ) [1]:

If, a handful of years into the future, the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States has fallen sharply or zeroed out, the president will deserve all the credit. Mexico’s president, that is... Texas Gov. Rick Perry, no stranger to the tough debate over the nation’s immigration laws, thinks recent legislation passed by Mexico’s Congress [...to privatize their state oil company...] may have set in motion a reversal of the flow of undocumented immigrants northward. In a short time, Perry said in an interview Saturday, undocumented immigrants may be streaming back over the U.S.-Mexico border, headed for lucrative energy sector jobs back home.

And, Carrie Dann of NBC News offers "Texas Gov. Rick Perry Not About 'To Ride Off Into the Sunset'" ( http://peekURL.com/zwYSC8Z ):

[Perry] says that Mexico's recent moves towards privatizing oil production could take much of the pressure off of the United States to address the problem of undocumented immigrants... "You will have rather substantive migration back to Mexico from the United States," he predicted, saying that the move would create attractive jobs in the energy sector for Mexican immigrants who will return home. "The whole immigration issue may really change over the next 12 to 24 months."

On an ironic note, the second quotes Perry as saying that "'self-deportation' turned off a lot of people, not just Hispanics... That was an offensive statement. It just was." Yet, he's implicitly admitting that self-deport would work: given the right inducements illegal aliens would return home. Those inducements could take the form of reducing the ability of illegal aliens to find work in the U.S., or they could take the form of increasing illegal aliens' chances of finding work in their own countries, or both. "Self-deport" or attrition boil down to the fact that illegal aliens can be encouraged to return home when the deal there is better than the deal here. Rick Perry might like to smear "self-deportation", but he's implicitly admitting it would work.

Perry at least will have trouble if he tries to engage in the deportations false choice in the future: simply point to his current remarks. Likewise to a lesser extent with Reid Wilson and Carrie Dann. Yes, having Perry and two establishment media sources implicitly admit some illegal aliens would return home if they got a better deal is like someone admitting that the Earth just might not be flat, but baby steps.

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[1] That post also quotes Perry as supporting a broad guest workers program: "[After many illegal aliens return home], this whole issue of immigration reform, I think loses a lot of steam. And then the immigration debate may become, how are we going to efficiently allow people into this country to fill the agricultural or hospitality or construction jobs that these people had historically been filling". At least in the quotes provided in both posts, Perry isn't promoting comprehensive immigration reform but instead seems to be taking a "secure the border first" position.