The immigration issue has been at the forefront of political discourse seemingly since the era when the wheel was invented.
Okay, I might be exaggerating a tiny bit – but it feels like this debate has been raging for far too long without any real solutions on the horizon.
The current border crisis has further compounded the problem, with hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants swarming to the southern border to gain entry into the country. Yet, it appears there are only a few in our government who actually want to solve the problem, which means it will likely persist for another decade.
I came across an op-ed in The New York Times in which author Jorge Loweree of the American Immigration Council suggests that one way to fix America’s immigration problem is to make it easier for people to come into the country legally. He describes the tangled web of bureaucracy that our immigration system has become and asserts that doing away with unnecessary obstacles in the process would actually help to secure the southern border.
“If the government is serious about securing the border, we have to make it easier for people to come through legal channels,” Loweree wrote.
The author references those who argue that immigrants must “get in line” and enter the country the right way. However, he argues that, under our current system, there is no “right” way to immigrate to the U.S. He notes that while 158 million people across the globe have expressed a desire to come to the United States, only about 32 million actually started the application process in 2021. Of those, only about 900,000 were granted legal entry.
Loweree attributes this to a system riddled with arbitrary caps, bureaucratic delays, and processes that can take years, if not decades, to navigate.
The current system is largely designed to favor those who have family ties here: namely, spouses, parents and adult children who are U.S. citizens and spouses and children of lawful permanent residents.
Those without close family ties may be able to apply for employment visas, but these are largely limited to those with specialized education and capped at 140,000 per year, a number that includes family members of sponsored workers.
There’s also a visa lottery program designed to increase the diversity of the immigrants coming to live in the United States. But in 2021 there were 11.8 million applicants vying for 55,000 visas allocated randomly. And then there are the 125,000 slots available through the refugee admissions program. For people seeking to immigrate to America to reunite with U.S.-citizen family members already here, the wait times are punishing because the backlogs are ludicrous.
Most U.S. citizens petitioning to reunite with adult children can expect a minimum wait of nine years. But for some nationalities, the wait is especially untenable: If someone applied this year to sponsor a sibling from Mexico, they’d be waiting in a line for easily 40 to 50 years.
The author goes on to note that folks who were offered a job in America “can wait as long as two years, if not more, for their paperwork to be reviewed and approved.”
Even after going through the process, “even highly educated applicants can face immigrant visa backlogs ranging from a couple of years to more than a century.”
“According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, there are around 7.6 million people approved for or waiting for approval for green cards but who haven’t received them yet because of backlogs,” the author writes.
I did an interview with a friend of mine about three years ago who personally experienced the ineptitude and unfairness of our immigration system. Soloman Graham, an American citizen and military veteran, had been waiting for years for his minor stepchildren to be allowed back into the country after their visas expired while they were visiting family in the Dominican Republic.
Despite doing everything by the book, including paying the requisite fees and filling out the paperwork, Graham and his wife had been separated from the children for over two years. “It doesn’t make any sense … why does it take so long?” he recounted asking.
The family tried everything it could to expedite the process, but to no avail. For even more years, they were separated from their children for no valid reason. The story does have a happy ending, however. About two years after this interview, they finally managed to get approval for the children to come to America. But the yearslong separation was hard on the entire family.
Graham’s frustration was palpable, especially considering that if they had smuggled the children across the border illegally, they likely would have been granted asylum or at least allowed to remain in the country while their case was being adjudicated.
By making it easier for people to immigrate here in accordance with the law, it could actually free up resources for Border Patrol, which has been stretched thin over the past four years due to the Biden administration’s incompetence. This way, they could focus on keeping out the ones with criminal records who might be likely to harm citizens.
I would also add that doing away completely with government benefits for immigrants would also be another way to dissuade many from coming into the country. The ones who do would have to make sure they are productive residents because they will not receive a state-funded safety net if they fail.
A more streamlined system would help everyone involved. Border Patrol could focus on catching dangerous people while taxpayers wouldn’t be forced to pay for immigrants. It would prevent situations like the Graham family experienced.
America’s immigration system is in dire need of reform. It not only fails those trying to follow the rules, but also penalizes them. It should never be easier to make the long trek across the border illegally than it is to go through the appropriate process.
Unfortunately our politicians do not seem interested in hammering out an actual solution. Sure, there are some genuinely seeking answers. But it appears the others are content to simply use immigration as a wedge issue to get themselves elected. Until this changes, the situation at the southern border will only grow worse.