I spent 25 years of my career in higher education helping international students navigate a complicated, contradictory, slow, and broken immigration system. I’ve worked with students who simply earn their degree and return home and many more who wanted to remain in the U.S. after getting their education and completing the work experience provided by their student visa. I worked with undocumented students, students who were seeking asylum, students who married an American, students who found a work sponsor and eventually became citizens, and students who broke laws and faced dire consequences. Through it all, I’ve interacted with all branches of our immigration system from Custom and Border Patrol, ICE, Embassies, regulatory experts, status adjudicators, judges, and immigration attorneys. And what I’ve gleaned from this experience is that Congress is responsible for failing to fix the many things that are broken.
The current crisis at our border is caused by our ridiculous laws. First, asylum seekers can only apply for asylum within the U.S. or at our border and we are required by our laws to grant them entry and a day in court. The second ridiculous law is the extremely low and arbitrary number of guest worker visas available to employers who have difficulty filling jobs that Americans don’t want to do. The third is Congress’ failure to pass the Dream Act, granting permanent status to children brought here by their parents and educated on our dime. And finally, the failure of Congress to fund adequate numbers of people to quickly adjudicate immigration status claims, leaving us with processing lines that can literally take years to process and approve. These are laws that Congress can and should address. Their continued failure to do so is a blatant invitation for people to overstay their visas, enter the country illegally to join family members or look for jobs, or show up at our border seeking asylum. We have created this crisis at our borders, and we have turned otherwise decent people into criminals.
Contrary to political talking points, the president lacks the power to change these laws. Remember, the executive branch is charged with enforcing the law, not making them. So, each president can only place a band aide on the problems or make life a living hell for migrants trying to follow our current laws. It was by executive order that President Obama famously gave temporary legal status to the Dreamers though the DACA Program. He was essentially saying that he wasn’t going to deport them and was going to allow them to live and work in the U.S. if they adhered to strict guidelines and renewal applications. Let us not forget that Obama was also nicknamed the “Deporter in Chief” because of the unpresented numbers of people he deported. To this day, the Senate has failed to pass the Dream Act because it would require at least 10 Republican votes. Getting those votes from a xenophobic white nationalist party is nearly impossible since the Dreamers in question are typically people of color.
Donald Trump, being the white nationalist he is, used the executive branch to take an even harsher approach to the immigration. Remember his Muslim ban? He also reduced the number of green cards available. He tried and failed to deport 98% of asylum seekers, those here under protected status who fled political and natural disasters. He tried to dismantle the Obama DACA Program for Dreamers. He made it more difficult to obtain visas. He wanted to build a wall to keep migrants out. Of course, he promised that Mexico was going to pay for it, but Mexico refused and so did Congress because walls have never been effective. However, Donald Trump had another evil trick up his sleeve to keep people out. He initiated the unthinkable act of separating children from their parents and then failed to keep track of them. He drastically increased the fees associated with all immigration related applications. His policy to make asylum seekers wait outside the U.S. was found to be illegal. In many cases, the court stood between Trump and the policies he tried to enact to curtail legal as well as illegal immigration. He said the truth out loud when he claimed that he wanted more people from countries like Norway and Sweden to come and not from those, “shit-hole” countries.
Obama, Trump and Biden cannot unilaterally fix the current immigration crisis at the border and all three have pointed to Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The problem is that Democrats want reforms that balance human compassion with the country’s actual economic needs while Republicans want to limit the increase of people of color and religious diversity under the false narrative of protecting jobs and “American values”. What Republicans fear most is the replacement of white majority rule. They are afraid that new legal immigrants who become citizens will vote them out of office permanently. However, what Americans see is the human crisis at our border and they wonder how to resolve it.
This week, I wrote to my Congresswoman, both my Senators, the House and Senate Majority leaders and the President (twice). I suggested that they need to act now to address and to make proposals to mitigate the problems. I made the following suggestions:
First, I asked them to end the requirement that asylum seekers be present in the U.S. or present themselves at our border. This law simply invites the border crisis. I suggested that they allow asylum seekers to apply for asylum from anywhere in the world and that we hire enough adjudicators to review the cases quickly before granting admission to the U.S. for those outside. In addition, I suggested that they work out an agreement with other countries to be part of a destination lottery for asylum seekers.
Second, I suggested that they increase the number of temporary worker visas to better match the employer demand for workers in industries like farming, food processing, restaurant, hospitality, healthcare, and other industries struggling with worker shortages. I asked the president to consider granting employer sponsored temporary work visas to those already here working illegally but otherwise obeying the law. The undocumented worker situation was a problem of our own making by failing to meet the needs of employers for workers. Our failure turned both employers and undocumented workers into lawbreakers. I see them as victims of a broken system. Let’s rectify that and moving forward strictly enforce the law.
Third, I suggested that they hire an adequate number of adjudicators so that the processing and approval of immigration applications doesn’t take years to process. Long processing times are invitations for people to overstay their visas or cross the border illegally to reunite with family members or to find jobs.
And finally, I asked them to pass the Dream Act to grant permanent status to young people with diplomas, jobs, businesses, military service, and no criminal record. These are people whom we have invested in and who are contributing members of our society. Granting them legal status would relieve a burden on our immigration system.
Doing these few things will eliminate much of the human trafficking, the travel perils of migrants, the mean-spirited political stunts of Trumpian governors, and we would free up border patrol officers to crack down on drug traffickers.
The crisis at our border is solvable. In fact, many of the problems within our broken immigration system are easily solvable. We just need a Congress that is willing to solve them. In particular, we need at least 60 U.S. senators to vote in favor of our economy and compassion and a Democratic House. So, lets vote for people who will fix this broken and ineffective system in keeping with our values. We are a nation of immigrants so let’s have an immigration system that actually works.