Rebuilding Our Faith in Immigration, America’s Greatest Asset

Partisan inflexibility must yield to common-sense solutions if the United States wants to benefit again from a once-valued force that’s now tearing us apart.

Immigration, a force that helped build American greatness for more than 200 years, has in more recent times become a persistent source of partisan conflict that threatens to tear us apart. A nation built largely by successive waves of new Americans now finds itself struggling to deal with the most recent influx of migrants plus a growing tide of would-be immigrants and refugees who crowd at our borders in hopes of claiming their share of the American Dream. 

The loudest voices in this debate work to attract “likes” and donations by portraying immigration as either an unmitigated threat to their definition of American sovereignty and way of life or a total, challenge-free blessing for the nation and all who already live here. These opposing and inflexible viewpoints – often reinforced by the most extreme ends of the partisan spectrum and a strong dose of nativist racism – prevent more reasonable Americans from honestly and effectively addressing the issue. Partisans who see only a threat from immigration forget this country’s rich immigrant heritage (and, almost certainly, their own immigrant ancestors). Those who count only the benefits of fully open borders may be blind to unseen fiscal and humanitarian costs, impacts on border communities, and the perils of unintended consequences.

While solutions to this policy standoff are elusive, the facts – and the numbers – are clear. By the end of 2018, according to Pew Research Center, the United States was home to nearly 45 million immigrants, almost 14 percent of our total population of 326 million. 

Two Paths America, an organization of bipartisan thought leaders seeking reasonable, proven solutions to America’s challenges, finds itself on the pro-immigration side of this discussion, but with a full appreciation for the difficult questions and trade-offs that must be addressed by those who advocate for solutions. To facilitate this discussion, we have focused on five primary challenges: dealing with the conundrum of those considered to be “undocumented immigrants;” issues presented by legal immigration; southern border security; refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine; and the unaddressed, unequal impacts on states and local communities. For each of these issues, Two Paths America offers its recommendations for action.
 

Rethinking Southern Border Security

The situation on the U.S. southern border continues to deteriorate. The U.S Border Patrol reported more than 1.6 million encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2021 fiscal year, more than quadruple the number of the prior fiscal year and the highest annual total on record. This historic number of encounters involved people from countries other than Mexico, with most coming from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Brazil, Haiti and Cuba. Economic, social and political instability in many of those countries has played a major role in this spike in encounters and those conditions are unlikely to improve any time soon. Policymakers need to look for ways to resume cooperative asylum agreements with these countries. 

There is rare bipartisan agreement on one point in the immigration debate: that the U.S. southern border should be secure, an essential issue on which both sides should be willing to find common ground for negotiation. The federal government needs to utilize a variety of high-tech tools that are at its disposal to secure our physical border. Currently, solutions to border-security challenges – and exactly how those challenges are defined – remain extremely partisan. Experts believe that border walls and barriers are effective in certain places, mostly in highly urbanized areas where the goal is to slow people down, but less effective in remote places like the desert or along the Rio Grande because it is very difficult to build and maintain physical walls and barriers in those areas. Policymakers should look to utilizing sophisticated and technologically advanced solutions to add to supplement physical barriers.

Recent changes in the makeup of migrant flows at the border require a new framework for addressing border security. For example, given the increasing percentage of children and families among those now seeking asylum, it is necessary to address such arrivals separately from the needs of securing the border against threats such as contraband smuggling or from migrants seeking to evade capture. The United States needs to set up separate systems for receiving and then processing asylum seekers and vulnerable populations at the border while also apprehending and processing other immigrants attempting illegal entry.

U.S.  border security depends on the smart and efficient use of available resources. And all must be examined in the larger context of reforms needed for the overall immigration system.

Managing migration is an important component that needs to happen. The bulk of the migration is not related to criminal activities, but rather to people turning themselves in with a hope that they can stay in the United States. We need to manage this process differently. We need to have a robust, more expeditious and fair way to manage that asylum process closer to the border and closer to the time the asylum seekers arrive to the boarder. Right now, all we are doing is processing people into ever growing backlog in the immigration courts, which is essentially allowing them to stay in the country, and that is not sustainable. Our present bureaucracy only encourages more people to take desperate measures to try to come into the United States and turn themselves in. 

We also need to work with Mexico and the countries in the region to address their own borders. We need to find ways to address migration before it gets to our border. That includes working with other countries in the region to help people find asylum in those countries. To do so, we need to build out the capacity of other countries by helping them develop stronger and more robust immigration policies. We need to help those countries go after the criminal smuggling and drug organizations, but our long-term approach has to be directed at countries the asylum seekers flee by helping them develop and become places where people will want to stay and raise their families.

Unraveling the Conundrum of Undocumented Immigrants

Undocumented or so-called “illegal” immigrants are the target of most anti-immigration commentators, who fail to recognize that the majority of these men, women and children initially crossed the border legally, with temporary visa documentation that has since expired. 

Though many of the policies that aim to reduce unlawful immigration are focused on enforcement at the border, the fact is that the majority of those crossing are individuals who arrive in the United States legally.  It is only later, after they overstay their visas that they become “undocumented.” A Center for Migration Studies report found that, in 2010–2018, individuals who crossed the border legally, but then overstayed their visas far outnumbered those who crossed into America illegally.

The total number of undocumented immigrants (those with expired visas as well as those who crossed illegally) has steadily grown to include an estimated 11 million people by mid-2022, although that number has leveled off since peaking just before the 2008 economic downturn. Roughly two-thirds of the currently undocumented immigrants in the United States have lived in here for more than a decade and have become valued members of the American workforce. Many are now parents of U.S-born and -raised children. 

The question of what to do with the 10 to 15 million undocumented immigrants who arrived lawfully over the past several decades, and who have become part of American life, is a serious matter for national debate and resolution, not an issue to be demagogued as political talking points.

The vast majority of undocumented immigrants are crucial members of the U.S.  labor force. To cite one example: American farmers rely on undocumented immigrants as agricultural laborers to harvest food for us and for export to others. We interact with undocumented workers daily, and critical components of our lives depend on their labors. Furthermore, the undocumented pay billions of dollars in taxes every year. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that $11.74 billion in state and local taxes were paid by undocumented immigrants in 2014. New American Economy estimated they contributed $100 billion in Social Security and $35 billion in Medicare funding from 2000 to 2011, bolstering the solvency of those programs.

Another facet of this challenge is finding how to deal with the undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States with their families when they were children. The uncertain status of these younger people (known to their advocates as “Dreamers”) is not of their own making. They fill an important role in our economy, representing around 4.6 percent of the U.S. labor force. It is in the nation’s interest to find a reasonable solution for this population. An earned pathway to citizenship, with restitution, would allow Dreamers to fully assimilate and integrate into American life without being unfair to those who have waited years for approval of their applications for a green card (documentation granting authorization for a permanent-resident immigrant to live and work in the U.S. on a permanent basis).

Solutions for the undocumented must fall into the rational middle ground between the extremes of mass deportation and amnesty. The continued failure of Congress to advance legislation for a resolution serves only as tacit approval of an unworkable status quo. Some legal tools already exist, such as sponsorship by family members who are already legal permanent residents or citizens of the United States, but wait times span many years. Some undocumented immigrants might also qualify for temporary worker visas, which would grant them legal status. But most of those visa categories do not offer a way for holders to adjust their status to legal permanent resident, making them inadequate to the larger policy objective, which should be integration and assimilation of this population. These roadblocks cry out for solutions.

Two Paths America believes that Congress should pass legislation that creates a clear path to citizenship when certain important criteria are met. Those criteria should include continuous presence in the United States for a number of years, a comprehensive background check, and including paying any back taxes owed or showing proof of income taxes already paid.

Congress must also act quickly to put DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program for children who arrived with undocumented parents) into law. A regulated guest worker program would be an important next step because it would meet America’s need for more workers while protecting all workers from unfair and predatory labor practices. From there we should move ahead to deal with the 11 million or more non-DACA undocumented immigrants. While Two Paths America is not advocating for a pathway to citizenship in all these cases, a mechanism to provide legal permanent residence after careful background checks and other measures will serve everyone’s interests.

Realizing the Benefits of Legal Immigration

According to the Pew Research Center, more than 35 million lawful immigrants live in the United States, most of whom are American citizens while others have received temporary visas available to students and workers. In addition, roughly one million undocumented immigrants have temporary permission to live and work in the U.S.  through the DACA and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programs. 

Immigrants made up 17 percent of the U.S. civilian workforce in 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compared to those born in the United States, greater shares of immigrants worked in service fields (20.6 percent of all foreign-born people); production, transportation, and material moving (15.2 percent); and natural resources, construction, and maintenance (13.6 percent). A 2017 Pew Research Center study projected that, without immigrants, the U.S. workforce would decline by almost ten million people by 2035.

Hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals work legally in the United States under various types of nonimmigrant visas. In fiscal year 2021, the United States issued more than 61,000 special H1B visas for high-skilled workers, more than 257,000 visas for temporary workers in agriculture, about 95,000 for temporary workers in fields other than agriculture, and more than 55,000 for spouses or unmarried children of H-visa holders.

The United States granted legal permanent residency status to about one million individuals in fiscal year 2019, which is roughly on par with most other years since the early 1990s. More than two-thirds of these legal immigrants were admitted on the basis of family reunification.  But more can be done in this regard. Immigrants from countries with large numbers of applicants often wait years to receive a green card through the family reunification process, since under current law no single country can account for more than seven percent of all green cards issued annually. By increasing those caps and adding the necessary staff and resources to clear out the backlog of cases, the United States can ensure that those who are seeking to migrate here legally and become a part of the fabric of our society are given an opportunity to do so. 

Two Paths America commends the Biden administration for taking some much-needed steps to reverse restrictions on immigration into the United States, such as boosting refugee admissions, preserving deportation relief for unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, not enforcing the public charge rule that denies green cards to immigrants who might use public benefits such as Medicaid and lifting some of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions that drastically reduced the number of visas that were issued to immigrants. To put that last point into perspective, the number of green card recipients declined from about 265,000 in the end of 2018 to 130,000 by the end of 2020. 

Two Paths America urges Congress to work with the administration to pass immigration reforms that would allow greater numbers of new immigrants into the U.S., while giving millions of unauthorized immigrants who are already in the country a pathway to legal status.

These actions should include reforms, including: increasing the number of employment-based green cards that are currently capped at about 140,000 per year; increasing the cap on refugee admissions, especially in light of the recent crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan; providing permanent work permits to spouses of H1B visa recipients; and creating a pathway for those living in the country under the TPS and DACA programs to apply for green cards and eventually have a path to obtain their U.S. citizenship.

Reforming Policies for Those Fleeing Afghanistan and Ukraine

Despite thousands of miles of separation from these conflict zones, the United States must meet the historic challenge to provide a safe haven for refugees who are fleeing wars and other humanitarian disasters in Ukraine, Afghanistan and elsewhere. We need to support nations much nearer to the flow of refugees, our allies and partners in the regions that are welcoming the greatest numbers of displaced people and refugees. Unfortunately, the U.S. immigration bureaucracy provides no easy policy mechanisms for quickly resettling large numbers of Ukrainians and Afghans. Our existing systems are too rigid, and our staff and resources are too stretched to respond to emergencies such as these. As a result, the options for Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s invasion are proving wholly inadequate. 

U.S. immigration policy has been failing Afghans for some time and now it appears destined to fail Ukrainians as well, unless the Biden administration takes swift, concrete actions toward serious reform. Two Paths America commends the administration’s decision to suspend deportations for Ukrainians who either are at risk of overstaying or have already overstayed their visas and to provide them a safe haven while they extend their stay in the United States. But we also press the administration for swift action on a number of other fronts, such as:

· Ensuring that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) expedites processing for all immigration petitions of Ukrainian nationals.  The U.S. should fast-track any Ukrainian with a pending immigration application – a work visa or a family-preference visa – to ensure they can arrive safely and quickly in the United States. USCIS should utilize resources and personnel to examine how they could speed up the processing, especially at consulates of countries with concentrations of Ukrainians fleeing the war. 

· Dedicating the necessary resources at USCIS to help address the backlog of humanitarian parole applications. Although a humanitarian parole system was established to provide efficient support to individuals with an urgent humanitarian need, years of underfunding and lack of staffing at USCIS, combined with overwhelming number of applications from Afghans fleeing Taliban rule, have completely overwhelmed that system and resulted in long wait times. 

· Offering expedited processing of Ukrainian religious minorities with close family members in the U.S. There is a precedent for this, as the Clinton administration expedited adjudication of Kosovar refugee applications and allowed applicants to finish their processing when they arrived in the U.S. 

· Expediting the refugee processing program for Afghans and expending it to include Ukrainians. The Biden administration can achieve this by providing expedited processing to Ukrainians who already have pending refugee applications by getting them to U.S. military bases in NATO countries to finish their processing. 

· Issuing Special Student Relief (SSR) to the estimated several thousand Ukrainian students currently studying in the U.S. This program extends flexibility to students who are unable to return to their home countries.

Addressing Immigration’s Unequal Impact on States and Local Communities

Our current immigration system does not address the dissimilar requirements of the 50 states, which are each unique in terms of their populations, economies, and labor market needs. States and communities situated directly on or in close proximity to the southern border can also bear greater social and humanitarian pressures than those less directly impacted.  Their needs and challenges must be taken into account.

Presently, state and local governments have little ability to direct foreign workers to specific parts of the state or to specific industries. As a result, many state and local officials believe that devolving additional immigration decisions to the states is preferable, feeling state governments are in a better position to understand the immigration needs of their own communities. Two Paths America encourages the federal government and state officials to form partnerships, allowing the states to play a larger role in the distribution of workers within specific regions or industries.

Tackling a Complex Web of Challenges with Thoughtful Solutions, Not Demagoguery

A nation that once asked the world to “give me your tired, your poor,” no longer lifts its lamp of welcome to would-be immigrants who flock to our doors. Somewhere we have lost our collective national self-confidence to welcome good ideas and hard work wherever we find them. Instead, we resort to steel walls, harsh rhetoric and bureaucratic blockades to turn would-be immigrants away. For many who come to our shores with skills and a work ethic we should value, our policies risk sending them to other, more-welcoming nations and denying our own communities of their talents, ideas and vigor. The historic contributions of America’s immigrant past have been forgotten.

For far too long, as this debate has raged, policymakers on the left and right have applied makeshift, topical treatments instead of the thoughtful, complex and bipartisan solutions these issues deserve. Two Paths America is convinced that the only lasting response to our immigration challenges is sweeping bipartisan immigration reform that deals effectively and humanely with the physical security of U.S. borders while creating a system through which immigrants can apply for and be processed by border officials in a timely manner. Immigration and asylum courts, along with much of the infrastructure supporting their operations are completely overwhelmed. 

Even though the United States accepts more immigrants in total, as a percentage of our population, the United States accepts far fewer immigrants than the other developed countries. Because of restrictions that the Trump administration put on our legal immigration system and the impacts of COVID (forcing attempts to process cases remotely, and closing our consulates overseas), every single component of our immigration system is backlogged, and we are not processing all the cases that we need to in any category whether its asylum or green cards, or temporary visas.

The Bottom Line

Of all the complex domestic and international issues crying out for solutions, perhaps none is as difficult and yet as deeply rooted in our national identity than the question of immigration. Perhaps it should not surprise us that immigration is also the issue most prone to political hyperbole, thinly disguised bigotry and public-policy inertia. Because these issues lend themselves so easily to fund-raising talking points and stump-speech sloganeering, immigration has fast become a problem that few – left or right – have an incentive to solve. For too many policymakers, solutions would rob immigration’s value as a political boogeyman. For all these reasons, immigration has resisted solutions and that resistance grows with each election.

Two Paths America believes otherwise. We are convinced there are enough calm-headed and determined leaders on both sides of the aisle – at the federal, state and local level – who can put their heads together to bring common-sense solutions to bear on most, if not all, of the many issues involved. Our goal with this paper is to begin that process as starting point for more detailed and far-reach solutions.  Immigration has been a stalwart building block of American democracy and prosperity for too many generations to abandon it now when we need its energy most.