The first of the three options—deporting those without legal status—is the law, under longstanding statutes. 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 efforts prioritized immigrants without status who had criminal records or were national security risks. Prior to the surge in border encounters several years ago, it was estimated that about 80% of the undocumented population had resided in the US for more than a decade.

The $75 billion for interior enforcement in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and the second Trump administration’s enforcement policy has, for the first time, made the deportation of all individuals without legal status the policy in practice. Because OBBBA does not change the underlying law, however, it isn’t necessarily a permanent policy. Without additional legislation, future administrations could return to prioritizing deporting only some of the undocumented population. 

The third option, leaving the vast majority here without status, was the practical policy for decades, not because people made a strong case for it. Instead, it remained the reality because it has been so hard for Congress to agree on who should be deported and who should be granted legal status. Many also found the practical challenges of identifying and deporting 12 – 14 million daunting, particularly when the economy had come to rely on them so much. The potential for massive arrests in communities across the country was also believed to be deeply unpopular.

Given separation of powers, narrow partisan majorities, and the lack of policy provisions in the OBBBA, the only durable solution is 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 to the most deserving groups, and only through a rigorous process. They would maintain deportation as the policy for those who pose a greater danger. 

This section asks you to consider what you think should happen to different categories of immigrants without status. In each case, we ask you whether you would support deporting them, establishing a process to earn legal status, or leaving them here without status.

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