THREE-LEGGED PACKAGE

Almost everyone criticizes the current immigration system. Multiple times in the last 30 years, Congress has been close to passing comprehensive reform that bipartisan groups of lawmakers argued would significantly improve the existing system. Those efforts failed because different camps concluded that the negotiated package didn’t provide enough of what they considered necessary. Some thought it should offer a path to citizenship for more of those here without status. Some thought it needed to do more to secure the border and enforce existing immigration law. Others thought it didn’t do enough to reform the legal immigration system.

In this section, we consider the arguments for and against a bipartisan package of reform proposals in all three categories.

BIPARTISAN REFORM

One plausible bipartisan package to improve the current system in all three major categories could include these proposals we reviewed above:

1 Lasting Increases in Border Security and Enforcement
  • Make OBBBA’s Border Detection Technology Permanent—Pass legislation requiring future administrations to continue and maintain OBBBA’s free-standing border technology aspects.
  • Reform the Asylum System—Raise the initial screening standard for assessing fear of persecution from “credible fear” to “reasonable fear.”
  • Make E-Verify Mandatory—Permanently authorize the system and make it mandatory nationwide.
2 Legal Immigration Reform
  • Modernize—Update the technology, processes, and data analyses.
  • Pilot—Test whether the more ambitious temporary work visa proposals can be implemented in a way that protects US and foreign workers.
  • Implement—Enact the temporary work visa reforms described above.
3 Route For Undocumented Immigrants to Earn Legal Status
  • Authorize Route for Those Who Arrived as Children—Pass the DREAM Act.
  • Authorize Route for Those Who Arrived as Adults—Pass the relevant provisions of the Dignity Act.

The Case For

Many everyday Americans and members of Congress cannot be readily characterized as either pro-immigrant or pro-enforcement. They argue that by adopting the most promising reforms in all three major categories, our country could draw on the merits of each perspective and build a far more stable and effective immigration system. By making the border more secure than it has been in the past and improving our legal immigration system, we can exercise our sovereignty to choose who we want and don’t want to welcome to our country. A more robust system of employment-based visas focused on areas of chronic worker shortages, they argue, will help sustain economic and job growth for Americans, and programs like Social Security and Medicare, as the country ages at an historic rate. They further maintain that the bipartisan package will take pressure off the southern border. Reformed legal immigration can offer workers from other countries the chance to multiply their earnings while better protecting them from the inevitable exploitation of working here without legal status. They argue that having finally established an effective fences and gates system for the future, we should give the most deserving of those without status the opportunity to earn it. 

Advocates for the bipartisan package also include those who fall clearly into the pro-immigrant or pro-enforcement camps.

From the pro-immigrant perspective, supporters of bipartisan reform argue that holding out for something better has failed for 30 years. It is time, they argue, to learn the obvious lesson that this strategy has harmed, not helped, immigrants. The number of undocumented immigrants, they note, reached 10 million over 20 years ago and has stayed above that level ever since. Holding out has simply left millions of human beings in limbo and vulnerable to exploitation. These are people in our communities who could have been protected under previous bipartisan packages. It is long overdue, they argue, to provide a path to some form of status for as many as possible. A more generous package that cannot pass does undocumented immigrants no good. They further argue that a nation that truly respects immigrants should also do much more to reform the pathways by which they can come here legally and safely to multiply their earnings.

From the pro-enforcement perspective, supporters of bipartisan reform argue that holding out for more enforcement guarantees backfired for almost all of the last 30 years. It produced a terribly insecure border, low levels of interior enforcement, and a more chaotic nation unable to decide who could and could not enter. Rather than advancing the fundamental principle of national sovereignty, they argue, holding out undermined it and allowed an undocumented population of over 10 million to persist for decades. By not reforming and expanding the opportunities for legal and temporary foreign workers, economic growth attracted more undocumented immigrants into the country and made interior enforcement even more difficult.

Pro-enforcement supporters of the bipartisan package acknowledge that OBBBA and the second Trump administration have achieved much of what they hoped for. They argue, however, that without bipartisan legislation, a future president is likely to reverse those gains. Experience shows, they maintain, that the only way to make border security last is to secure as much of it as possible in a bipartisan immigration bill. They argue that to do that, enforcement advocates must recognize the need to reform the legal immigration system and provide a route to status for those most deserving. 

The Case Against

Opposition to the bipartisan package comes from two contrasting camps:

Pro-Immigrant 

Pro-immigrant opponents of bipartisan legislation argue that treating those who have lived and worked with us in our communities with dignity and respect is a fundamental principle. It should not be bargained away for half measures. Millions who could not earn status under the bipartisan package outlined above, they argue, should be protected, not sacrificed for other undocumented immigrants. These opponents maintain that public opposition to status for undocumented immigrants is receding because of what they see as the excesses of the second Trump administration’s deportation policies. This is no time to compromise, they argue, because future Congresses and presidents are likely to be much more sympathetic toward undocumented immigrants. They also contend that past efforts to appease enforcement advocates in the hope of extending legalization to more immigrants has only produced more enforcement and no legalization. They see little reason to keep chasing goal posts the other side keeps moving. These opponents also argue that the legal immigration reforms that could pass in a bipartisan package would leave a permanent class of temporary workers vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers. 
vs
 Pro-Enforcement & Restrictionist 

Pro-enforcement opponents of bipartisan legislation argue that the principle of sovereignty should not be compromised. For 30 years, they note, they were told they could not accomplish what OBBBA and the second Trump administration have now achieved. Having demonstrated it can be done, they argue, the country should keep working to make those achievements permanent rather than trade them away. Enforcement advocates hold the strongest position they have had in decades, and compromising now would surrender that leverage just as it is paying off. The American people, they argue, will have no appetite to return to the chaos and lawlessness of an unsecure border. Restrictionist opponents go further. They resist any form of amnesty and oppose any bill that expands legal immigration, even in exchange for increased enforcement. They point to the last major amnesty action, passed in 1986, which they argue delivered legal status immediately and permanently while its promised enforcement never fully arrived. The lesson they draw is that package deals favor legalization, so enforcement must come first and be made to last. 

Restrictionists also argue that the legal immigration system should be reformed to eliminate, or at least significantly reduce, visas rather than increase them. They are particularly committed to reducing work visas to protect US workers from being displaced and having their wages reduced by foreign workers.Â