Why not option D: Strong borders, severe punishments up to and including summary expulsion of any illegals?
Because that is included within Option C? It falls for the fallacy of an all powerful state, which we simply do not have. Let's put aside popularity for a moment. For whatever reason, the government is united behind this plan. No immigration from a list of countries that "do not have their shit together" and immediate expulsion into I don't know, Belgium, for any illegal immigrants who get caught.
Well, some of them are not going to try and come. Some of them are going to try and get caught. Some of them are going to succeed in making it there and eventually get caught.
But if the harshest pariah states on Earth, using even more extreme measures, cannot establish a strong border, can you? I ask this question seriously. I don't see any way in which both history and knowledge of the human race doesn't make that an extremely low probability. It's one thing to say it. Another to declare it in law. Another to enforce it meaningfully. And another still to be effective even with the most fanatical enforcement.
I'm an American. Illegal immigration and the response to it isn't just a theoretical issue to me, it's a reality I experience pretty regularly. And I'm in goddamn North Carolina, far from our borders. The response of the government at the top level is one thing, but what do you think all the governors of Texas say when they get elected? It's something along the lines of "damn what the globalists in Washington think, we're gonna stop those criminal louts and take back our country this time!".
"This time" finds a way of not working out. Donald Trump gets elected in the biggest political upset...uh...ever on the promise of
THE WALL. Front and center. Issue numero uno. He's President of the world's most powerful nation right now with his party in government, so it should be child's play for him to finally stop the immigrant horaannnddd into the budget committee it goes. It's easy to say "stop immigration", it's not so easy to do it.
I will grant that it is not a violation of any of the laws of physics to stop immigrants.
What I'm telling you here, more than anything else, is that the universe doesn't owe you a stance that means there's no terrorism in your country. There is a very real possibility that all options involve terrorist attacks. And there is also a very real possibility that if you say "fuck that, I'll do anything to protect the innocent" that you will
cause more terrorist attacks than if you had stuck to option B.
The real option D, if there is one, is to abandon all group separatism and greed to build a utopia on Earth so that nobody wants to be a terrorist....about as likely as option A.
It's a denial of reality to not accept, whether you believe it or not, the
possibility that you aren't being given an exit option no matter how "soft" or "hard" you choose to be in responding.