Immigration in America: Security, Humanity, and an Honest Path Forward

Why Is the US Immigration System Broken?

The US immigration system has not been comprehensively reformed since 1986. In the four decades since, the population of undocumented people has grown from 3 million to 11 million, legal visa backlogs have reached 33 years for some categories, and the political debate has calcified into two positions — open borders and mass deportation — neither of which is real policy.

The system is broken in three fundamental ways. First, the legal system doesn't work. An employer who wants to hire a skilled immigrant can wait 10 years or more for a green card. A US citizen petitioning for a sibling can wait over 20 years. An Indian-born engineer with a job offer from an American company can wait 33 years in the employment-based queue. When legal immigration is this slow, this expensive, and this arbitrary, people find other ways in. The immigration issue page documents the full scope of the backlog.

Second, enforcement targets workers, not employers. The single largest incentive for illegal immigration is the availability of jobs that pay cash, ignore labor laws, and face no meaningful penalties for hiring undocumented workers. In 2019, ICE conducted high-profile raids on Mississippi poultry plants, arresting 680 workers. The companies that hired them faced no criminal charges. This enforcement model is backwards: it punishes the most vulnerable people in the chain while leaving the structural incentive untouched. The labor policy explains how employer accountability reduces exploitation.

Third, the asylum system has collapsed. There are currently over 3 million pending immigration court cases in US immigration courts. The average wait time for an asylum hearing exceeds five years. This creates an absurd situation: people with legitimate asylum claims wait half a decade for protection, while people with no valid claim use the backlog to remain in the country indefinitely. Neither group is served by a system that takes five years to make a decision that could be made in 90 days with adequate staffing.

Sources: Pew Research Center, Department of Homeland Security, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, TRAC Immigration. See the full immigration issue page for complete sourcing.

What Does the Common Good Party Propose on Immigration?

The Common Good immigration plan addresses all three failures simultaneously: it modernizes border security with technology that works, creates an earned pathway for long-term undocumented residents, holds employers accountable, fixes the legal visa system, protects DACA recipients permanently, and reforms asylum processing to be fast and fair.

This is not an open-borders plan. It is not a mass-deportation plan. It is a plan built on the premise that immigration policy should be governed by evidence, economics, and American values — not by cable news cycles and election-year fear. Every provision is modeled on systems that work in peer democracies and is costed against the federal fiscal framework.

• Earned Pathway to Legal Status: Long-term undocumented residents (5+ years continuous presence) who pass background checks, pay back taxes, demonstrate English proficiency, and pay a fine receive provisional legal status, then enter a 10-year path to permanent residency. This is not amnesty — it is accountability paired with a realistic solution.
• Modern Border Technology: Replace ineffective wall construction with ground sensors, drone surveillance, satellite monitoring, and expanded port-of-entry processing. Most illegal crossings occur at legal ports of entry, not between them. Security spending should match the actual threat, not political theater.
• Employer Accountability: Mandatory E-Verify for all employers with 10+ employees. Fines starting at $25,000 per violation for knowingly hiring undocumented workers. Criminal penalties for repeat offenders. Whistleblower protections for workers who report violations.
• Visa Modernization: Eliminate per-country green card caps. Expand employment-based visa allocations to match labor market needs. Create a startup visa for entrepreneurs. Digitize processing to reduce wait times from decades to months.
• DACA Permanent Solution: Permanent legal status and a clear path to citizenship for all DACA-eligible individuals — roughly 600,000 people who were brought to the US as children and have lived as Americans their entire lives.
• Asylum Reform: Hire 1,000 additional asylum officers and double immigration judges. Establish regional processing centers. Require initial asylum determinations within 90 days. Legitimate claims are protected faster; fraudulent claims are resolved faster.

For the complete plan with legislative detail, cost projections, and sourcing, see the full immigration issue page and the taxation policy for the funding framework.

How Does the US Immigration System Compare to Other Countries?

Every major democracy manages immigration. Some do it well, with clear rules, reasonable timelines, and systems that match labor market needs to visa allocations. The United States does it poorly — with backlogs measured in decades, enforcement that targets workers instead of employers, and a political debate disconnected from operational reality.

The contrast is stark. Canada processes skilled worker visas in under a year. Australia uses a transparent points-based system that matches immigration to labor market needs in real time. Germany recently overhauled its immigration law to actively recruit skilled workers from outside the EU. Japan — historically one of the most restrictive countries on immigration — has expanded its visa programs to address labor shortages in elder care, construction, and hospitality. Meanwhile, the United States — a nation built by immigrants — has the longest wait times, the largest undocumented population, and the least functional processing system of any peer democracy.

These aren't cherry-picked comparisons. They represent the immigration systems of the world's largest economies. For a detailed side-by-side comparison of party positions on immigration, see the Compare Parties page. For how immigration connects to labor markets and trade policy, see those issue pages.

What Are the Biggest Myths About Immigration?

Immigration is among the most deliberately misrepresented issues in American politics. Both parties use immigration to generate fear, outrage, and fundraising emails. Here are the four most persistent myths — and what the evidence actually shows.

Immigration Policy: Frequently Asked Questions

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Have a question not answered here? Read the full immigration issue page or visit our site-wide FAQ.