The immigration stalemate in America – an endless cycle between different administrations – is largely self-inflicted, because Congress has repeatedly failed to recognize one simple thing: immigration happens.
Consequently, immigration laws must be continually adjusted, reformed and revised, experts say.
“People will always want to come to the United States, and the United States will always need people,” said former Trade Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who was one of President George W. Bush’s top immigration advisers.
Until there is a system that allows sufficient legal immigration to meet the needs of the economy, there will be illegal immigration, said Gutierrez.
“This is just part of how our economy is configured. It’s part of the demographics, “said Gutierrez.” Our birthrate is not high enough to meet the needs of our economy. ”
The coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the importance of immigrant labor to the American economy, including undocumented labor.
This opened the eyes of many Americans to the precarious US food supply, which depends on rural immigrant and undocumented workers and slaughterhouse workers, as well as the roles of other immigrants as essential workers, such as home health aides, nurses and paramedics.
All of these people and many other immigrants, including young immigrants – often called “Dreamers” based on proposals never approved in Congress called the DREAM Act – will play a key role in helping the economy recover from its pandemic explosion.
But immigration requires periodic calibration, and the economy and patterns of change are lost in politics.
“People are going to move – as in the rest of the world – wherever they think they can find places to better feed their children. This is the main point, and this is the story of migration to the United States, ”said Luis Fraga, director of the Institute for Latin Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
Another generation in legal limbo
The Biden government is trying to figure out how to prosecute and shelter children and adolescents who cross the border. Many minors cited a simple reason to come – to meet with a father who is already here, part of a previous migration.
Meanwhile, millions of young “Dreamer” have spent most of their lives in the United States, having immigrated as children, but without legal status. Most rural immigrant workers, who make up a large and essential part of the workforce, do not have the protection of work permits or green cards.
The House passed two bills to give “Dreamers” and farmers a path to legalization, but Senate Republicans practically said they were dead on arrival – they want a comprehensive immigration bill that also addresses the oversight of borders.
The immigration stalemate has lasted long enough for several generations of young immigrants to have come of age here and moved into adulthood in limbo, stagnating their economic mobility, along with their communities.
In 2013, President Barack Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an interim solution after years of Congress’ refusal to legalize immigrants who have been here since they were children, but had no legal status.
Immigrants with DACA protection still face possible removal from the country, as the Trump administration threatened, but they have two-year periods of deportation and work permits. Many states grant other benefits, such as driver’s licenses and tuition fees at state colleges in their home states.
The first measure to legalize young immigrants was introduced in 2001 as the DREAM Act. The passage of legislation or something like that happened so many times that it earned the nickname “Dreamers”, just as those who benefited from Obama’s DACA program use “Dacamented” to refer to their almost legal status.
The bill passed by the House that faces opposition in the Senate would deal with some of the 4 million young people among the 11 million undocumented in the country, significantly increasing their economic prospects by closing a chapter in the long immigration stalemate.
The majority of the undocumented population is Latin, and the population is young – meaning that it is a significant part of the current and future American workforce.
Reliving an immigration tool from the past?
While current bills are an important step, they should be seen as part of an ongoing process, experts said.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made it possible for 3 million people to become legal residents. But, contrary to what was thought at the time, this did not end the issue of illegal immigration – an example of the dangers of depending on a single approach.
Immigration laws must be “constantly revised”, “agile” and sensitive to new developments, said Fraga.
A regular legalization tool, known as the registration date, already exists in the immigration law. In 1929, the law set the first date on June 3, 1921, and immigrants who could prove that they have been continuously in the United States since then could apply for legal residence.
The date has been updated over the decades and was last adjusted so that anyone in the country before January 1, 1972 would be eligible to apply for permanent legal residence.
In a 2010 report, the bipartisan Migration Policy Institute, or MPI, recommended reliving the registration date.
The institute’s analysis of the 2018 data revealed that 60 percent of the undocumented population has been in the U.S. for at least 10 years.
“If you set a registration date to 15 years in the past, that date will simply roll over [forward], or say 20, ”said MPI co-founder Doris Meissner, who was commissioner of the now-deactivated Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Clinton administration.
“Since people are in the country for that period of time, we must adopt a statute of limitations approach,” she said.
The MPI proposed that Congress be obliged to set a new date and to review it and consider whether it should be redefined every five years.
But Meissner said that, given the current environment and politics in Congress, she has little faith that lawmakers will adopt a registration date.
Ultimately, the registration date is an “alternative solution” to the country’s “grossly inadequate immigration laws”, Meissner said.
“What you really want to do is have a managed system and that the public has confidence that the government is taking care of the store,” she said. “But the government is not looking after the store right now because it does not have the tools.”
Democrats drafted extensive immigration legislation based on proposals from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, including measures to legalize the 11 million undocumented.
Meissner said the project aims to build legalization programs to deal with future immigration flows, which the 1986 amnesty law failed to do.
The legislation of the 1990s tried to deal with future immigration flows, but it was adopted shortly before a change in the labor market – when the country stopped producing younger workers, Meissner said.
Immigration patterns change. The laws too.
In the 1990s, most immigrants crossing the border were single men who came to the United States to work – meeting this need – said Veronica Vargas Stidvent, former assistant secretary of labor for US policy and former special assistant Bush.
But in this decade, the Mexican economy has changed and immigration has changed again for families and unaccompanied minors, mainly from Central America.
Fraga asked: “Have you predicted that so many unaccompanied minors, relatively speaking, would come from Central American countries?”
Still, immigration policies are based on the immigration pattern of the 1990s, said Vargas Stidvent.
Meissner said that most people arriving at the border now do not qualify for asylum, but try anyway, because it is the only legal way for the United States. Few have relatives with legal permanent residence that would allow them to petition to bring family members.
“If our system worked the way it was supposed to, the family petition would not be possible for all of them, but for a good number of them,” she said, “and there would be more opportunity to come and get work visas. “
‘Two-year electoral cycle’ will not work
Vargas Stidvent said the country is governing in a “two-year electoral cycle, while the problem is much bigger than that and requires a long-term approach that does not lend itself to catchphrases”.
“It is necessary to have a bipartisan group willing to suffer political coups in the short term and reach a long-term solution, and that is what is missing,” she said.
“Immigration will continue to happen and, frankly, from an economic point of view, you want it to continue,” she said. “You want to have an influx of younger workers.”
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