While Democrats can (and likely will) write a document that rivals “War and Peace” on this subject if ever given the chance, it really comes down to 3 or 4 basic objectives.
Maintain a secure border that includes identifying everyone that comes into the country. Deport all illegal immigrants in the country that have committed violent felonies. Provide a clear and concise path to citizenship for all long term illegal immigrants that haven’t committed serious crimes. Structure a flexible but number based quota system for how many immigrants should be allowed in the country each year, covering labor needs, technical skill gaps and a set aside for humanitarian asylum requesters. We can’t be an unlimited sink for those fleeing persecution, our foreign policy should be focused on fixing those issues at the source, not importing them here, but there will always be a need in the world for asylum. Finally, ICE needs to be reeled in immediately, no more masked vigilantes, all must wear body cams starting now, no more shootings of people without independent investigations and consequences, absolutely no more harassment of U.S. citizens for protesting (that’s the job of regular law enforcement) and no “monitoring” of election sites or that kind of fascist Neo-nazi tactics. They must be made to follow the law, use due process, provide information to D.A.s and local law enforcement when requested and obey court orders.
If Democrats would vocally demand and support this multi-pronged, sanity based approach they could win this issue. While yes there is a hard core group of Trump supporters that get off on being cruel to immigrants in the effort to Make America White Again, I believe most Americans are repelled by shooting U.S. citizens, separating children from parents, locking people up in cages and deporting them to places like the Republic of Congo. STOP BEING STUPID on immigration.
A country is only secure if its borders are secure. With the possible exception of the most progressive 5% of the Democratic Party, no one wants open borders. Contrary to long standing Democratic dogma, the Hispanic community is as supportive of strong border control as anyone. Donald Trump has done a great job closing the border to immigrants, but his policy is indiscriminate; Stephen Miller, his junior Nazi wanna be, hates all immigrants, which means the population of the United States will simply wither and die with time. What we haven’t closed the border to is Fentanyl trafficking; while seizures are up, the reality is the vast majority of it is brought in by U.S. citizens at legal points of entry. Why? Because despite our affinity for cruelty to immigrants, we just can’t psych ourselves up to do the obvious- stop and search every vehicle coming across the border, whether it’s with drug sniffing canines or chemical sensors, because it would be “bad for business”. Can’t have that, even if it means Americans die.
There are literally millions of illegal immigrants in the United States that have been here for many, many years, contributing to our society, following the laws, paying taxes, building lives in a country they have come to love. It is idiotic and irrational to pretend like we’re going to deport all of them. ICE has a goal of deporting 3000 people per day. That’s just over 1 million people per year if one could actually maintain that rate. It would take 20 years, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe close to a trillion based on the ICE funding budget, to accomplish the removal of all illegals. The destruction to the social fabric of America would be astronomical. And who is going to do the jobs that so many of those people are doing now? America is getting older not younger, and telling me that Gen Z (or Millennials) are going to rush in to fill all those Home Health Care, Home Construction/Maintenance, Agricultural Labor and similar jobs being filled today by that population makes me laugh hysterically. You can’t get that group off their phones long enough to vote, let alone do difficult, lower wage or dangerous jobs. They won’t even fill manufacturing or skilled craft jobs now that can pay close to $100,000/yr because it’s “dirty” work. It’s a recipe for economic collapse. Who wants to spend all our tax dollars on that when social security will be cutting benefits in six years? Get a simple straightforward path to citizenship, not some asinine 10 year jump through a hundred hoops approach.
Conversely, almost everyone, including the vast majority of Hispanics in America would support deporting all illegal immigrants with serious felony convictions out of the country with only a review to ensure the convictions are real. Drug lords, gang bangers, protection racketeers, armed robbers, etc add nothing to our society and the sooner we get rid of them the better. People with only felony charges, not convictions need better review to ensure justice, but we don’t need to allow them to exhaust every legal avenue possible because they aren’t citizens. We just need to ensure they get due process, not just lock people up without reason, put them on planes to hellholes and wash our hands of it. We can only do this with enough immigration related judges, we need to be increasing those, not hiring more ICE goons.
Long term we need to develop a quota system for how many immigrants we will let in each year. It can’t be unlimited, and it’s equally if not more idiotic for it to be zero. There are many different categories for these quotas, which will make it the most challenging part of the policy to enact but it is absolutely critical. Examples of these categories include but aren’t limited to: seasonal labor (mostly agriculture), craft skills (we have a shortage of trained craft people in America and as anyone who has built or remodeled a home can tell you, there are many qualified immigrants with craft skills), professional skills (medicine being at the top of the list) and technical skills (Engineering, Technology, Math and other Sciences). Then there is the category of asylum seekers or those escaping disasters (Temporary Protected Status). Like it or not, all of these categories need numerical quotas, but needs and circumstances change, so there must be flexibility within the categories, with an overall cap. Adjustments to the cap should be authorized by Congress, not Presidential whims, while executing changes within the categories to reflect real time needs should be a discretionary Executive branch power.
Finally we have those that fall in between. First and foremost are the “Dreamers”. They should be granted citizenship now. they aren’t here due to their own actions, why make them suffer? If they’ve committed serious crimes kick them out but otherwise, get on with it. The TPS groups are next, they should be your initial group to screen for your quota system needs, because they are ALREADY here legally. The toughest category in my mind is the short term illegals, those that entered in the last 5-6 years or so as part of a flood during the Biden administration. The problem is identifying them vs. the long term people. How can you do that without going around profiling based on “they look illegal let’s arrest them”? I believe they need a much longer path to citizenship vs. the long term group (who have proven themselves already). Yes it’s hard, that’s why it hasn’t been fixed but what the hell do we send people to Congress for? It’s not to be on social media, profit off of illegal insider trading or have affairs with staff. It’s to work. Make them do their damn job!