We have now reached the third and final leg of our stable platform for immigration reform. If border security builds a reliable fence, and legal pathways create orderly gates, we are still left with an important question: what do we do about the estimated 10 to 14 million undocumented immigrants already here?

Fundamentally, there are three options for the 10-14 million already here without legal status:

1. Deport—Individuals without status could be identified and removed from the country.
2. Grant legal status—Establish a path by which some of those already here could earn some version of legal status.
3. Leave them here without status—Choose not to deport but leave those already here without status.

The first of the three options—deporting those without legal status—is, by longstanding statute, US policy. For decades, however, US policy was, in effect, the third option of leaving the vast majority of undocumented immigrants here without status. Until the current Trump Administration, Republican and Democratic administrations’ enforcement of the law on the books targeted the most dangerous immigrants without status with the resources available. It is estimated that about 80% of the undocumented population have resided in the United States for more than 15 years.

The $75 billion for interior enforcement in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and second Trump Administration’s enforcement policy has made the option of deporting essentially all without legal status the policy in practice for the first time. Because OBBBA lacks new policy provisions, however, it isn’t necessarily a permanent policy. Without additional legislation, future administrations could return to focusing only on deporting the most dangerous immigrants without status.

The third option of leaving the vast majority of undocumented immigrants here without status was the practical policy for decades, not because people made a strong case for it. Instead, it remained the practical reality because it had been so hard for us as a nation to agree on who should be deported and who should be granted legal status. The practical implications of deporting so many on which the economy had come to rely without also reforming legal immigration also limited enforcement beyond those who had not committed additional crimes or posed a national security risk.

Given separation of powers, narrow partisan majorities, and the lack of policy provisions in the OBBBA, the only lasting resolution is likely legislation with enough bipartisan support to pass both chambers of Congress. To resolve the decades-old congressional impasse, most serious legislative proposals distinguish between different categories of immigrants without status. These proposals would grant some form of legal status only through a rigorous process to the most deserving populations and maintain deportation as the policy for those who pose a greater danger.

This section asks you to consider what you think should happen to immigrants in different categories without status.  In each case, we ask you whether you would support process for granting them status, deporting them, or leaving them here without status.

We first consider the immigrants who arrived here as children. We then consider those who came as adults.