Both parties have spent two decades treating immigration as a political weapon instead of a solvable problem.
The Republican Party, in the same breath, frames immigration as a legal issue while at the same time moving toward a policy approach that, instead of repairing the root causes, does little to address the legal bottlenecks and labor demands that sustain undocumented immigration. They cite higher crime rates, yet available research generally demonstrates that undocumented residents have lower crime rates than U.S.-born residents. They cite dependency on tax-funded systems while neglecting that undocumented residents pump money into a Social Security system from which many will never draw benefits and support local schools through property taxes paid directly or through rent. The children of lower-income immigrants demonstrate higher economic mobility than children of similarly situated U.S.-born parents, while undocumented immigrants are generally ineligible for most federal benefit programs and use health care services at lower rates.
Too many Democrats, on the other hand, treat the idea of having an enforceable immigration policy as the product of racism or fascism, yet countries around the world recognize their right to enforce immigration laws, including many of the countries undocumented residents come from. They too often act as if the US voting system is above serious administrative failure, corruption or fraud. Welcome to New Jersey, where a software failure improperly registered roughly 6,600 people who had identified themselves as noncitizens and the state’s preliminary analysis found that fewer than 400 voted. That doesn’t establish an intentional fraud scheme or prove that an election outcome changed, but it is serious, not just because it involved immigration but because of what else could go wrong. We should be auditing every single pipeline connected to the voting booth because that is what good, accountable government does. If you are opposed to doing this because it might hurt your party, then you should probably look in the mirror when you’re calling the other guy a fascist.
The US is facing slowing population growth and a projected population decline that could have a devastating impact on our economy. We border countries with cultures that, despite what the right would have you believe, include strong religious, hard-working and family-oriented traditions that fit comfortably within the American mythos.
For whatever reason, enough leaders and lawmakers in both parties don’t want to fix the issue and appear intent on making sure the flames get bigger as a pathway to achieving other ideological goals or motivating voter bases. Prior to Trump’s first term, there were two major bipartisan opportunities to resolve the issue through proposals that were very similar. One was backed by George W. Bush and the other was supported by Obama.
| Issue | Bush-Backed Bill, 2007 | Obama-Supported Bill, 2013 |
|---|---|---|
| Undocumented Population | Would have allowed many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants to apply for a renewable “Z visa” that allowed them to live and work legally. | Would have allowed many of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants to apply for temporary legal status. |
| Initial Requirements | Applicants had to pass a background check, remain employed, maintain a clean criminal record and pay a $1,000 fine. | Applicants had to pass criminal and national-security checks, pay assessed taxes, remain employed or show enough income and pay a $1,000 penalty. |
| Path to Citizenship | Z-visa holders could eventually apply for green cards. They would have to pay another $4,000, learn English, wait behind existing applicants and return to their home country to apply. The process would generally take more than a decade. | Most applicants would have to wait at least 10 years for a green card and another three years before applying for citizenship. DREAMers and some agricultural workers could qualify for a faster process. |
| Border Enforcement | Required 370 miles of fencing, 300 miles of vehicle barriers, 20,000 full-time Border Patrol agents and other security measures before major parts of the program could begin. | Funded 20,000 additional agents along the southern border, brought fencing to 700 miles and required new technology and security plans. These measures had to be in place before provisional immigrants could receive green cards. |
| Employment Verification | Required employers to use an expanded electronic system to check whether employees were legally allowed to work. | Required all employers to use E-Verify, generally within four years. |
| Guest Workers | Created a temporary-worker program allowing up to 200,000 Y visas per fiscal year. Workers generally had to spend time outside the United States between work periods. | Created new temporary-worker programs for agricultural and other workers. The programs included wage protections and allowed the number of visas to change based on demand. |
| Legal Immigration | Placed more emphasis on education, job skills and work experience. It would have ended green-card categories for siblings and adult children, limited visas for parents and ended the diversity visa lottery. | Expanded employment, STEM and high-skilled visas while trying to reduce existing visa backlogs. It also created a merit-based option and ended future sibling visas but kept more of the family-based system than the Bush proposal. |
Both versions would have provided legal pathways to citizenship that could have helped address our projected population decline, boosted tax revenue and economic activity, potentially given the right a socially conservative voting base, given the left a human-rights win and created an opportunity for stronger economic partnerships with countries to our south.
But in typical American fashion, a Bush compromise that connected to real solutions failed. The right couldn’t get over its rigid definition of amnesty and some businesses saw the costs and restrictions as too burdensome. On the left, labor unions argued that the guest-worker provisions could suppress wages, while immigrant-rights groups objected to the fines, family-visa restrictions and requirement that applicants return to their home countries.
The Obama compromise passed the Senate 68–32 but didn’t even see daylight in the Republican-controlled House, as Republican leaders decided to shut it out.
What happened in NJ isn’t Sherrill’s fault. It isn’t Murphy’s alone either. This is just another symptom of an ideological football that too many in both parties don’t want to resolve because it serves their purposes. They appear intent on using purity arguments to defeat any reasonable resolution.
And so here we are, with federal agents in cities testing constitutional limits, our voting system, fundamental to a functioning democracy, exposed as vulnerable to a serious administrative failure and political parties more akin to religious cults than serious policy engines.
References
New Jersey Governor’s Office statement on the voter-registration software failure
Social Security Administration analysis of unauthorized immigration and Social Security
Tax payments by undocumented immigrants
Research on economic mobility among children of immigrants
Health coverage and access among immigrants
Census Bureau population-growth update
Census Bureau long-term population projections
Bush immigration-reform proposal
Senate Judiciary Committee report on the 2013 immigration bill
Why the Obama-supported proposal stalled in the House
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