The Perversion of U.S. Immigration Policy

​ Because population size has long been important measure of a nation’s strength, the United States began its existence encouraging immigration. Even though this policy was largely intended to bolster our nation’s economy, it was usually shrouded in humanitarian appeals. To Europeans seeking refuge from religious and political persecution the U.S. was hailed as the “New World” with virgin forests and open prairies where men could own their own homes, provide for their family members and be free to practice their chosen religions. Over time, our nation’s needs would change and that would be reflected in its changing attitudes toward immigrants. Today, U.S. immigration policy is no longer being shaped by our nation’s economic needs or its desire to be a haven for those seeking a better life, but rather by domestic political considerations. How and why this came to be is described herein.

A Brief History of Immigration Regulation

​ In 1814 Francis Scott Key, inspired by the battle of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812, wrote the poem which later became the lyrics to our national anthem which describes the U.S. as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”  In 1883, Emma Lazarus wrote her poem which was later inscribed on the Stature of Liberty beseeching the world to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” A few years later Ronald Reagan in his final State of the Union address echoed these sentiments describing the U.S. as that “shining city on the hill.”  

Despite over 100 years of repeated invitations to those seeking a better life, immigration became a source of concern for Americans following the Civil War when a few states began to enact restrictions on immigration. The states’ involvement in restricting immigration, however, was quickly put to an end when the U.S. Supreme Court in 1875 ruled that regulating immigration was solely the responsibility of the federal government.

Following that ruling, the federal government turned its attention to immigration issues focusing on keeping“undesirable” individuals from entering the country. In 1882 Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act. In another immigration law enacted that same year, Congress placed exclusions on certain classes of individuals including convicts, lunatics, idiots and individuals unable to care for themselves. In the Immigration Act of 1891 the categories of persons prohibited from entering the country were further expanded to include polygamists, those convicted of crimes of moral depravity and individuals afflicted with diseases deemed to pose a risk to the public health.

​ In the twentieth century, the federal government began to limit the number of persons entering the country as well as their nationalities. The Immigration Act of 1924 imposed an annual immigration quota of 2% of total number of people of each nationality then residing in the U.S. There were two exceptions to these restrictions: (1) all immigrants from Asia were precluded from entering and (2) immigrants from “the western hemisphere” countries were exempt from the national quotas. In 1952, Congress passed the McCarran-Walter Act which rescinded the total exclusion of Asian immigrants and reduced the annual national immigration quotas to 1% of each nationality’s representation in the U.S. as recorded in the 1920 census. In 1965, the nation’s immigration laws were amended again to eliminate the national quotas altogether and to replace them with an aggregate annual immigration quota of 675,000.

It had always been assumed that those permitted to enter the country would also be eligible to become citizens. That assumption was altered by the Nationality Act of 1940 which placed restrictions on who could become a U.S. citizen. An important exception contained in that legislation was based upon the Fourteenth Amendment’s conferring U.S. citizenship upon those born in the U.S. irrespective of the citizenship of their parents. As noted below, this exception would later become a sticking point.

The Economic Consideration Underlying Immigration Policy

​ At the time of its founding our nation encouraged immigration to quickly build its economy. The country needed able-bodied men to clear the land, tend the fields and build the factories, roads and railroads. Those who answered its siren call were neither professionals nor intellectuals and most did not even speak English. Rather, they were largely uneducated individuals willing to do almost anything to create a better life for themselves and their families; and in many cases they had to overcome enormous obstacles just to have the opportunity to do so.

​ Those seeking entry today are not much different. They are predominantly poor and have been mistreated in the countries where they were born and have had to overcome enormous obstacles and endure many hardships to get here. This evidences their strong desires to work hard to improve their lives. Indeed, contrary to the assertions of Donald Trump and his acolytes in Congress, immigrants seeking refuge in the U.S. are generally willing to perform almost any job, including those that most native Americans shun. In addition, allegations that asylum seekers are hardened criminals are wholly unfounded as crime rates among new immigrants are lower than crime rates among native-born Americans. These and other myths about immigrants are exploded by Zeke Hernandez, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, in his new book entitled “The Truth About Immigration.”

​ The critical question is whether our country needs more immigrants. The short answer is “Yes.” The United States now has approximately 8.5 million unfilled jobs, nearly 3 million of which are in the hospitality, leisure, healthcare and social service industries.  It also has approximately 6.5 million individuals who are categorized as “unemployed”, almost half of whom are unwilling to take the low-paying jobs immigrants gladly accept. This means that the U.S. could easily absorb as many as 5 million additional able-bodied immigrants.

Perhaps even more critical, the U.S. has an aging population. The percentage of the U.S. population over the age of 65 was 9% in 1960; today it’s twice that percentage. As a result, every member of the nation’s workforce must now provide for almost twice as many elderly Americans as they did in 1960. Yes, Social Security, Medicare and a number of other social welfare programs are flirting with insolvency, but that’s not because those programs are rife with fraud, but rather because the number of individual who enjoy the benefits of those programs has grown much faster than the number of individuals who are working and paying the taxes which support them. Stated another way, if the U.S. is to continue its current way of life, expanding immigration is one of the most significant and fastest avenues for doing so.

The Introduction of Political Considerations

​ By the end of the twentieth century, bi-partisan legislation on immigration essentially came to a halt. Following Lyndon Johnson’s resounding defeat of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election, the Republican Party restructured its political agenda to appeal to wealthy individuals, evangelical Christians, southern segregationists and western state libertarians. That construct, however, only provided a voting base smaller in size than the voting base of the Democratic Party which was a melting pot of a variety of ethnic groups including those seeking asylum in the U.S. It did not take long for Republican politicians to realize that any legislation which tended to increase immigration would simply add to the voting base of the Democratic Party.

​ This situation was even more perilous than the numbers of registered voters suggested. That’s because the imposition of immigration quotas enacted during the preceding 40 years had trapped within our nation’s borders approximately 10 million migrant workers (mostly Mexicans) who had been coming into our country each year to help harvest fruits and vegetables. Although these individuals had traditionally returned to their native countries following the fall harvests, they had stopped doing so for fear that they would not be allowed to return. While these “illegal” immigrants lacked a path to citizenship, their children born in this country would automatically become citizens. Adding to this army of potential Democratic voters was a steady influx of South and Central Americans illegally entering our country (many with their young children) in search of a better life.​

During the administration of George W. Bush there were three bills proposed in the Senate to address a variety of immigration issues.  They were rolled into a single bill entitled “The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.” That bill would have increased border enforcement through the creation of 300 miles of vehicle barriers, 105 camera and radar towers, and 20,000 more Border Patrol agents, while simultaneously restructuring visa criteria to give preference to high-skilled workers. While this bill was fully debated, it was rejected by Republican legislators because it also provided legal status and a path to citizenship for the approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants then residing in the U.S.

President Obama, after focusing on efforts to lift the nation’s economy out of the Great Recession during his first term in office, turned his attention at the outset of his second term to the  festering immigration issues. To that end, he proposed the following four-part plan: First, it would strengthen the nation’s borders. Second, it would crack down on companies that hire undocumented workers. Third, it would impose requirements on guest workers to pay taxes, learn English, and pass background checks. Lastly, it would streamline the legal immigration system under which U.S. citizenship might be earned.

Obama’s proposal was taken up in the Senate by what was dubbed “the Gang of Eight” consisting of four Democrats and four Republicans. They fashioned a comprehensive bill which was overwhelmingly passed in the Senate by a vote of  68 to 32. Had it been enacted, it would have established a 13-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants while imposing measures to ensure no jobs were given to immigrants who are not authorized to work in the United States. It also would have increased security along the nation’s southern border. The problem was that House Speaker Boehner refused to allow the House to vote on it even though it enjoyed ample support within the House of Representatives.

This was indeed a missed opportunity as U.S. manufacturers, facing rising global competition, were being forced to accelerate their efforts to move their operations abroad where labor costs were lower. This forced millions of U.S. factory workers to take lower paying jobs in service industries. It also heightened xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments as laid off factory workers had to compete with unskilled immigrants for those service industry jobs. At the same time thousands of new immigrants were starting to come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador seeking refuge in the U.S. from drought, crime and corruption in their home countries.

Pouring Gasoline on the Fire

Entering upon this scene was Donald J. Trump who began his 2016 presidential campaign by descending the escalator in his Fifth Avenue apartment building while railing against these new arrivals whom he asserted were murderers, rapist and drug dealers being sent to the U.S. by the government of Mexico. While he had his facts wrong, he was clearly correct in recognizing that the growing number of persons seeking asylum in this country was posing a  variety of problems that needed to be addressed. His solution, however, was to build a wall along the 1,950-mile peaceful border separating the U.S. and Mexico which he vowed Mexico would pay for.  This solution was not only simplistic and wholly unrealistic (not just because Mexico was NEVER going to contribute to the costs of its construction) but also because it ignored that 12 million illegal aliens were already in our country.

Trump, however, was not concerned that no wall would actually keep asylum-seekers from entering the country. Each year more than 350 million individuals legally passed through entry portals on our southern border. Accordingly, a few million illegal immigrants passing through those same portals might not even be noticeable. Nor was he concerned that an impenetrable barrier could not even be constructed or that getting Mexico to make any financial contribution to this undertaking was a total pipedream. He was simply trying to arouse the hates and fears of the roughly 60% of American families that felt that their government had been ignoring their well-being for the past 40 years. At the same time he was showing that he recognized their plight and was willing to do something about it.

While Trump also vowed to deport those who were already in our country illegally, this too would have been a monumental and costly undertaking just trying to locate and apprehend them. More importantly, most of those 12 million aliens had become fully integrated into the nation’s communities and are making significant contributions to its economy. Although Trump characterizes these illegal aliens as “vermin and pests”, removing them would have made the situation even worse. It would have been like eradicating the bees that pollinate the flowers, fruits and vegetables that improve the quality of our lives. Who would harvest the nation’s agricultural products, who would remove our garbage and refuse and who would work in our fast-food restaurants, all while having taxes deducted from their wages and without being eligible to participate in government welfare programs.

Also appealing to the hates and fears of many Americans, Trump vowed to restrict Muslims from entering the country. Although the early immigration laws had largely focused on the nationality of immigrants, they never sought to discriminate on the basis of religious beliefs. The McCarran-Walter Act, however, did include a provision empowering the President to restrict the entry of any class of aliens deemed to be detrimental to the interests of the United States. That provision was later invoked by Trump in an effort to restrict Muslims from entering the country.

In an effort to make good on his anti-immigrant promises, Trump began building a wall along a portion of our border with Mexico and began detaining asylum seekers in cages and separating immigrant children from their parents. These efforts were ostensibly done “to deter” others from seeking sanctuary in our country.  In reality, they were an effort by Trump to demonstrate how cruel he could be in dealing with persons his supporters were led to believe were their enemies.

The flow of illegal aliens into the U.S. increased significantly during the Biden administration which Trump and his Republican allies in Congress blamed on Biden’s “more receptive attitude” toward asylum seekers. This increased flow of immigrants crossing our southern border prompted Texas’ Republican Governor Gregg Abbott to create a barrier in a portion of the Rio Grande River and to send scores of busses loaded with illegal immigrants to New York, Chicago and Detroit so they could share in Texas’ burden of having to accommodate these unwanted intruders. Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis went one step further. He chartered a plane and transported approximately 60 asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard, a secluded island off the coast of Massachusetts. Unwilling to generate hostility within Florida’s own immigrant population, DeSantis simply abducted aliens that had recently crossed the Rio Grande into Texas.

The influx of over 6 million new arrivals prompted the Biden administration to seek a more comprehensive solution to the nation’s immigration problems. That project was taken up by Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Kyrsten Sinema(I-AZ) and Chris Murphy(D-CT) who in February 2024 published the text of yet another comprehensive immigration reform plan. That plan was essentially a wish-list of reforms being advocated by Republican politicians which called for enhanced border security, making the processing of asylum-seekers faster, curbing the importation of fentanyl, modernizing the immigration system, limiting work visas and giving the President the power to shut down the border if the stream of migrants exceeded certain limits. This plan, however, was never acted upon. Republican members in both the House and the Senate rejected it at the request of Donald Trump who announced that he did not wish to give President Biden a political victory on an issue which he intended to feature in his forthcoming presidential campaign.

The Denouement

Thus, an important national issue which should have been addressed on economic and humanitarian grounds was yet again left festering for partisan political reasons. It’s hard to even believe that Trump intends to revisit this issue if he is re-elected. His actions during his presidency were only designed to animate his voting base and he never even began to address the nation’s multitude of immigration issues. Similarly, while he promised to enact a superior medical insurance plan while attacking Obamacare, he produced no such plan during his four years in office. It is indeed beyond ironic that the political party that constantly rails against the influx of immigrants pouring into our nation is the one that has repeatedly sabotaged efforts to address that issue .