For today’s post, rather than me focusing on one point of view, I wanted to open a discussion about the various aspects of immigration, that might not so easily fall along current political lines and that don’t have simple answers. I’d like to know what our readers actually think about these issues, not what politicians or journalists or parties think we think or should think. There’s a reason the US has a lot of immigration (because this is an awesome country to live in with opportunities for work!), and while we can disagree about what the best solutions are, it would be so refreshing to actually talk about these issues like cooperative adults, not moralizing scolds or fear-mongers. So let’s actually TALK about immigration.
Asylum. Our laws grant protection to individuals who have fled their home countries due to persecution or fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a marginalized, threatened group. If you are granted asylum, you can live and work legally here, apply for a green card after 1 year, eventually apply for citizenship, and can petition to bring family members with you. You cannot be deported back to your home country. You can legally be disqualified based on a serious criminal conviction, participation in terrorism or persecution of others, or prior asylum denials. You can also be disqualified if you were in a safe country other than your country of origin prior to coming to the US (e.g. escaping Guatemala via Belize, then Mexico before coming to the US if you were safe in either Belize or Mexico).
Asylum is of course tricky. Courts have to decide if the asylum claim is legitimate or not. Courts are generally favorable to claims of fleeing a politically oppressive regime, but a little more skeptical of fleeing gang violence. Accepting white South Africans who claimed that they were afraid of black people killing them and taking their farms, a conspiracy theory that aligned with Trump’s own prejudices, is another example of why asylum claims can be subjective and unpredictable. In 2023, the US received just shy of a million asylum requests. Half of these were defensive asylum claims, meaning they were filed as a defense when the person was brought to an immigration court; these individuals did not claim asylum on arrival. More than half of all asylum requests are from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, and Guatemala. Over 50% claim political oppression as the grounds for their request. Of the countries I listed, their success rate varies quite a lot. 65% of Venezuelans are granted asylum, but only 19% of Colombians are. 65% of Venezuelan claims are based on governmental oppression. 35% of claims from Guatemala are based on gang violence.
America First proponents dislike asylum laws which have been in place since 1951. Their argument is “why should our tax dollars pay for other countries’ problems? Why are we the ‘dumping ground’ of the world?” Trump seems to be confused about the term “asylum,” mistakenly conflating it with mental patients coming to the US. Others would argue that US policies, intervention in other countries’ politics, and factors like global warming have led to the conditions that lead people to flee these nations. You break it, you bought it. Recent actions by the current administration include cutting funding for immigration courts. There are currently over 2.5 million asylum cases backlogged in our courts. Cutting legal aid for asylum seekers while making ICE the most highly funded national enforcement agency is designed to curtail due process, instead detaining and deporting individuals who may not speak English and many of whom are small children without legal representation.
Where do you sit? Is asylum a catch-all for immigrants, a loophole that’s being overused? Is it something we should help solve as something we helped cause? Should we put more resources toward it or fewer? Should family members be allowed to join asylum seekers as the law currently states? How do we significantly reduce asylum seekers (if this is a worthwhile goal) while also upholding the law and giving people due process?
Sanctuary Cities. Several GOP governors scored political points prior to the 2024 election by relocating undocumented immigrants to blue states and sanctuary cities (none of which are on the border–NYC, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, and Denver, in addition to states New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont). These stunts were deemed cruel by the left, but also highlighted the difficulty of dealing with a large influx of immigrants, a burden that border states (which lean red) bear disproportionately. Trump’s administration has called the existence of sanctuary cities a form of insurrection and called for the arrest and removal of governors of states who refuse to cooperate with ICE in removing undocumented immigrants.
Sanctuary cities are local jurisdictions with their own laws and policies that limit interactions and cooperation with federal agencies to curb what they consider dangerous overreach. The policies include things like local law enforcement not participating in ICE requests. They do not notify ICE of release dates for undocumented immigrants who are in jail and they do not grant ICE free access to local detention centers. They also do not permit local law enforcement to ask about immigration status. These policies are in place to encourage immigrants to report crimes and cooperate with law enforcement without fear of deportation. Since many undocumented immigrants live in higher poverty areas with higher crime rates and may be victims of or witnesses to crime, these laws enable local law enforcement to create a more stable society and keep crime rates down. These tactics also ensure due process for criminals by not distinguishing based on immigration status. Both Texas and Florida, by contrast, have passed laws that ban sanctuary policies. ICE can still arrest, detain, and deport undocumented individuals in a sanctuary city; they just can’t use local law enforcement to do so, and they can’t use the local police or courts to identify and detain people for them.
Do you think sanctuary cities (and jurisdictions) are a good idea or a bad idea? Do they protect undocumented criminals or do they protect the rule of law by ensuring due process? Do they improve cooperation with police in local communities or are they a form of “insurrection” (which I guess you could say any time a state law differs from a federal law, if that’s where you want to go)?
Tourists Overstaying Visas. An Irish tourist was recently detained for a month after overstaying his Visa by 3 days while he was visiting his girlfriend. He had torn his calf and was ordered not to travel for 8-12 weeks due to risk of blood clots. He’s not the only one to be detained by ICE.
Thomas’s ordeal follows a rise in reports of tourists and visitors with valid visas being detained by Ice, including from Australia, Germany, Canada and the UK. In April, an Irish woman who is a US green card holder was also detained by Ice for 17 days due to a nearly two-decade-old criminal record.
What do you recommend the consequences should be for overstaying one’s Visa? Do you support detaining tourists for weeks as happened in this case, despite his willingness to self-deport immediately when confronted? Do you consider these tourists to be law-breakers who deserve rough treatment? Is this a FAFO situation, so they get what they get?
Foreign Students. A feature of many Ivy League institutions in the last several decades has been to rely on the high tuitions they charge top performing foreign students to enable them to provide low tuition to poor but deserving American students. The Trump administration is against this practice and seeks to reduce the number of foreign students, particularly if those students are from countries that are either a competitive threat to the US or who disagree with Trump’s views on Palestine or other political issues. Reducing the number of full-paying foreign students will reduce the ability of these universities to support scholarship students. Cutting grant money also impede the ability of these universities to attract top students, and many are looking to European universities and other acclaimed higher education venues instead. Many on the left dislike the nepotism involved in Ivy League admissions and would prefer merit-based admissions.
Do you think we should reduce the number of foreign students in our universities and reserve these spots for deserving American students? Are these schools too expensive and elite? How would you maintain the quality of education that requires money while dramatically changing the funding sources, or do you think these universities should be eliminated in favor of lower cost, more egalitarian alternatives?
Political Monitoring. Do you think there should be a higher standard of political monitoring (social media, participating in protests) for those who are not citizens? Do you agree with Marco Rubio that a foreign-born protestor is a threat to national foreign policy?
Immigrant workforce. We know that our economy depends on low-income workers to perform manual labor, hospitality, agriculture, and meat processing (to name a few). Historically, there has been a fairly porous border for seasonal migrant workers to perform jobs like produce picking. It has been observed that you couldn’t find a non-migrant worker who would be willing to do these jobs for $100K a year, which may be accurate. Even Trump has backed off rhetorically when confronted with the issues these industries would have with staffing shortages if they didn’t have access to a low paid workforce which currently is majority immigrant (and thanks to how slow our immigration processes are, most of these are undocumented or somewhere in the very long line toward citizenship which takes on average 8-15 years). And as comedian Carlos Mencia says, if an immigrant who can barely speak English can take your job, you might not actually be a great worker. Academics have also pointed out that given our non-replacement birthrate, immigrants are the best way to ensure social security will still be there for an aging population. I know firsthand that undocumented workers are paying taxes and have been issued Tax IDs before they have been issued green cards. They pay taxes and take the crap jobs nobody else wants.
Should the “right” path to citizenship be easier and faster than it is? Are immigrants a positive to our economy or a threat to workers? How do you propose filling jobs that are currently filled by immigrants?
Masked ICE agents, profiling, and use of force. With the ramp up in ICE agent activity, many of the tactics being used have been roundly criticized. Profiling has resulted in mistakes where citizens who happen to be hispanic were violently apprehended or detained. The father of 3 US Marines was beaten roughly by ICE agents and thrown into a van. ICE agents defend the use of force by the mandate to apprehend three thousand per day, which means they have to be less ponderous to achieve the goal. Additionally, many ICE agents are newer because of the increase in staffing. Wearing masks is something they defend as necessary to protect them from those who disagree with their actions.
Conversely, it doesn’t take a whole lot of law and order episodes or much imagination to see that if you can wear a mask and refuse to identify yourself, you can basically just kidnap brown people with limited consequences. Refusing to be identified usually means you are doing something wrong or dangerous, right?
Do you think ICE agents should have to identify themselves? Do you approve of the use of force or do you think it’s gone too far? Do you agree that racial profiling is an acceptable method to find the undocumented workers among us?
Deportation to other countries. One deterrent that’s gotten a lot of press is removing the undocumented to foreign countries that they have no affiliation with. Aside from the torture prison in El Salvador, the administration created an agreement to send detainees to Libya, a country Americans are warned is unsafe for travelers. “Alligator Alcatraz” is here in the US, but also poses serious risks to detainees: food that is unsafe to eat and being surrounded by dangerous alligators and snakes in a swamp that is in the path of hurricanes. These areas are evacuated usually at least once a year due to the danger of hurricanes, protections that won’t apply to detained people. This is deliberate to deter illegal immigration.
Are these actions a deliberate violation of human rights? Do you think there’s a way to do this that supports human rights? Is this an extension of the concept of for profit prisons which are also prone to horrible conditions, mistreatment, and corrupt bargains?
Birthright citizenship. The argument from the right is that undocumented immigrants want to give birth here (anchor babies) to gain access to citizenship. For example, their child could sponsor them later because the child is automatically a citizen due to the 14th amendment. They also argue that the 14th amendment should not apply to the children of undocumented immigrants because it was written with enslaved people in mind. The problem is that citizenship is based on where you are born, so if you aren’t considered a citizen based on where you are born, you are a stateless individual. If states have different interpretations of the 14th amendment, all sorts of downstream problems will happen as some will have no status and others will have status. People don’t typically remain in the state they were born in forever.
Would you make changes to the 14th amendment? How would you deal with “stateless” individuals or a patchwork interpretation of the law?
Denaturalizing citizenship. OK, this one’s pretty silly, but hey, Trump said he was going to send strip Rosie O’Donnell of her multigenerational citizenship and send her to Ireland. Legally, the only way to denaturalize someone is if they lied or omitted facts during the immigration process. This does not apply to anyone who was born in the US, only to those who immigrated here. Do you think there is ever a scenario in which an American born, American citizen can or should be stripped of their citizenship and deported to a country they’ve never lived in?
Selling citizenship to wealthy foreign nationals. Trump has suggested selling citizenship for $5M to anyone who would like to make such a contribution. There are 5 Caribbean countries that offer this at a minimum “donation” of $100K. Additionally, 5 EU nations also offer a Golden Visa program, popular for real estate investors. The most expensive of these is Austria ($2-10M). There are similar programs in 3 Pacific region countries. The US already offers an EB-5 Visa program for million-dollar investors which provides a green card with citizenship after 5 years of residency. China and India have long waitlists for these Visas. Concerns about Trump’s proposal are mostly linked to the abuses that already exist in most of these programs such as tax evasion, money laundering, or granting those running corrupt or criminal enterprises easy access to US citizenship. It’s also an ethical question whether the American dream should be sold to the highest bidder. Is this a country where hard work should be its own reward, or where the wealthy can buy their way in but those with a dream get curb-stomped by ICE? Would you expand the existing EB-5 Visa program or remove some of the restrictions to allow wealthy investors more access?
- Overall, are you in favor of immigration or do you think there are too many immigrants?
- Do you see immigrants as altering American culture or assimilating into American culture within a generation or two? Either way, are you in favor of this or against it?
- Do you approve of how immigration has been working or is now being addressed? If you were in charge, what would you do?
- Do you think the average church member is for or against immigration?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I generally support immigration.
Guest Workers. We need a guest worker program for migrant laborers, such as from Mexico, and maybe other workers, too, including H1B skilled professions. A guest worker program need not lead to citizenship. Guest workers can pay taxes, and can collect social security back in their home country after retirement.
Visa Overstays.. Many countries use visa overstays as income generation — when an overstay is discovered, a fine is imposed. Should a deportation occur, it should happen immediately, or within a couple of days. Imprisoning a visa overstay person for weeks is wrong unless the sole reason is the obstinance of the person’s country.
Third Country Deportations.. Deportations should be back to (a) the home country; or (b) the country from which the person entered. When a third country deportation occurs, it should be to a country that accepts the person with appropriate civil liberties — deportations to third country imprisonment (or really, renditions) without due process such as to El Salvador’s CECOT are very bad. If a country will not accept deportees, well, the U.S. should take that into account before granting visas to that country’s persons.
Higher Education. Of course I support foreign enrollment in our country’s higher education programs — robust foreign enrollment is lucrative and actually increases opportunities for U.S. students. If Americans are being disadvantaged in any program, well, we can deal with that on a case-by-case basis, such as reducing or stopping visa approvals for certain academic fields or institutions.
Masked ICE Agents. This is bad. This looks like our worst fears from the Gestapo or KGB, and they didn’t wear masks! I generally believe that arrests should be made by uniformed officers, federal or local, using marked vehicles — the public needs the visibility that arrests are legitimate. An un-uniformed police officer might detain a criminal for a few minutes until a uniformed officer arrives on scene. Along these lines, I also believe plainclothes police in unmarked cars should not be used for traffic enforcement — a citizen should not have to pull over for plainclothes police in unmarked cars.
Birthright Citizenship. I support birthright citizenship. Our laws already allow for the denial of visas or the denial of admissions where birth tourism is suspected.
Dreamers. If a child is “illegally” brought into the U.S. and remains here for some period of time (maybe ten years) of good behavior, that person should receive amnesty and legal permanent residency (maybe even citizenship) after ten years or upon achieving majority.
These are just some thoughts. We need sensible and practical revisiting of immigration U.S. laws and policies, and their should be some sense of charity in our end result. Hatred and fear-mongering is not a good basis for public policy decisions.
A lot to unpack here. Take just one: “sanctuary cities.”
Bad title. It’s not like law enforcement or city officials “protect” illegals from federal law enforcement. If an actual enforcement raid happens, local law enforcement actually protects the feds! The primary effect is simply that state and local law enforcement don’t enforce federal immigration law. Because it’s not their job! That’s just a specific instance of the general constitutional rule that local law enforcement cannot be forced into behaving like deputized federal law enforcement. Why not, you ask?
It’s partly about money. Washington loves to pass laws that force states to do things, but not fund it from federal tax dollars, instead forcing states to foot the bill. Allowing states to say NO to federal edicts protects the sovereignty of states, protects the financial resources of state governments, and protects states from being effectively co-opted by the federal government. Imagine what damage Trump could do if he could simply order states to do things, plus pay for it out of the states’ pockets.
It’s partly about politics. Locally, some politicians think the “sanctuary city” proclamation plays well with some local voters. At Washington, some politicians think a war on sanctuary cities plays well with *their* voters. As always, none of them are really interested in immigration reform. Well, there was that bipartisan immigration reform bill with broad support from both parties a couple of years ago. Trump told his spineless sycophants in Congress to torpedo it so Trump could demagogue the immigration issue in the election. Trump is more interested in undermining immigration reform for political reasons than anyone. And stupid voters rewarded him for that! Maybe we’re getting what we deserve.
Remember, actual data show that OBAMA DEPORTED MORE PEOPLE IN HIS FIRST SIX MONTHS THAN TRUMP DID! As always, Trump is simply incompetent as a leader, a consequence of his narcissism and his overall stupidity. Trump just wants to throw people in concentration camps and grab Fox News headlines.
Wow, so many questions. I’ll try to address them succinctly:
Immigration is good for the US, and we should encourage more legal immigration. Immigrants generally assimilate into our culture pretty well. They do also change our culture in the process. It would be impossible not to. But our culture is the better for it. A points-based immigration system such as Canada has that favors those with needed skills or other criteria makes sense to me. As the columnist Thomas Friedman has said for many years, a graduate degree from a US university should come with a green card stapled to it. I agree with the sentiment. I believe a majority of those in the US illegally would have come legally if that option were realistically available. In a world where they can come legally, I don’t have a problem with taking a harder line on border enforcement, because claims by immigration hawks that they are mostly criminals might actually be true in that situation (currently I think they are an exaggeration). We probably need a massive guest worker program to cover the many agricultural and construction workers who are already here without legal status. Allow them to apply for it even if they are currently here.
I think asylum law is necessary, but not meant to be used as it currently is. It’s become a loophole. If you have to wait for months or years for your case to be heard, we’re doing something wrong. We should have either imposed stricter rules for who can claim it, or massively grown the number of immigration judges to hear cases. We did neither. Refugee status is a slightly different category, and I think especially for conflicts that we played a role in creating (i.e. Afghanistan), we should be very generous with how many refugees from those conflicts we are willing to admit.
I don’t have a problem with birthright citizenship. We may be a bit of an outlier, and other countries may do things a bit differently, but I regard it as a sort of penance for our original sin of slavery.
I think visa overstayers should be treated commensurate with the violation. Let’s not treat the equivalent of a speeding ticket like armed robbery.
I don’t think any kind of routine law enforcement, including immigration enforcement, should be done by people wearing masks. It looks way too much like the behavior of many authoritarian countries who opposed us during the cold war.
I think American Mormons are on average pro immigrant. Because so many support the Republican party, they tend to support strong enforcement against illegal immigration, but I think they are more in favor of legal immigration on average than other members of their party. American Mormons are far more likely than average to have traveled abroad and to personally know someone who has immigrated.
I spent a lot of time in the OP talking about asylum because I agree with Quentin that it’s an area of immigration law that is not working as designed. It’s become the catch-all for immigrants. Now maybe some of that is legitimate due to global warming and government instability in South American countries, but the fact that half of asylum claims are made only defensively (after someone is “caught”) sure sounds like it’s being used when other options are exhausted. The length of time it takes to go through the system legally is also pretty crazy, IMO. No wonder people don’t complete the process. It also seems like a crap shoot whether your asylum claim will be granted or not, depending on which way the political wind is blowing. Does the judge agree with your claim of political oppression? If so, you win. If not, you lose.
Rather than being a drain on public systems, they are funding them for the rest of us without having legal access to benefits. Most of the undocumented people I know (as well as a lot of frugal American citizens) avoid using the US healthcare system entirely, instead going to Mexico to see the doctor or dentist, but that’s what happens in border states I guess.
I had a driver in Romania several years ago who was complaining that with all the Muslim migration into France, that within ten years, France will be a majority Muslim country with a Muslim culture. This claim sounded completely ridiculous to me, just as it does when I hear fear-mongering in the US that US culture will be [insert immigrant culture] within a short time because they breed like rabbits, don’t speak English and eat weird foods. France and the US have unique cultures, and people immigrating to our countries are going to assimilate within a generation. In the movie The Big Sick, Kumail loves his American girlfriend and wants to marry her but at the same time, his Pakistani parents keep trying to arrange a marriage for him with a “nice Pakistani girl.” He has no intention of marrying a stranger who is from a culture he doesn’t embrace, but his American girlfriend eventually finds out and breaks up with him. When he inevitably confronts his Pakistani parents, he tells them that if they wanted him to marry a Pakistani wife and practice Pakistani customs, they shouldn’t have moved to America. He’s an American now, and they should have understood that was what they were doing when they moved here.
The picture clearly illustrates the balaclavas these guys use to hide their faces. I wonder if it’s equally clear that there are no badges or other identifying info.
The claim is it’s a policy designed to protect agents from reprisals. But it’s interesting that police, sheriffs and other military are able to function, including making arrests, without the same fear. To say that these ICE folks fear reprisal is just about to admit that they operate with extra legal methods and unnecessary force.
Just a taste of what it’s like living here in Occupied Los Angeles.
There should be asylum applications allowed from people’s countries of origin via the US embassy. Biden had something like this for a number of countries. It relieves pressure at the border. Illegal border crossing should be heavily discouraged and people crossing the border should be sent back and told to apply for asylum through the embassy.
Sanctuary cities are a great idea. They relieve local law enforcement from the burden of finding and detaining immigrants.
Visa overstays can be discouraged by demanding a heavier penalty for so doing and also by telling Visa overstayers that they may not be eligible to obtain another visa if they overstay. Some leniency, as always should be granted.
Foreign students are a net benefit to the US and the students’ countries of origin. They give the US soft power, a concept that is foreign to MAGA xenophobes.
Legally documented foreigners enjoy all the same rights as citizens. Trump is violating free speech by detaining them for saying and writing things he doesn’t like.
Migrant workers are vital to the US economy. Create more worker programs for them to come and work, but ones which also give them protection from exploitative hiring and employment practices.
Migrants shouldn’t be deported to other countries. Absolutely absurd.
ICE agents should have to show ID, show their faces, and use body cameras. It should be illegal for any group of vigilantes to dress up and kidnap people. ICE should have to prove that they are actual authorized migration enforcers.
Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution as it should be. No citizen should be able to become denaturalized.
I disagree with selling citizenship to the highest bidder.
Immigrants are a net benefit to the US on the whole, from every different angle. We need more immigrants, but more order and orderliness as well.
There is no such thing as “American culture.” The US contains a melting pot of different cultures and always has. Migrants are a net cultural benefit to the US.
There are lots of tweaks and changes that need to be made to the immigration system. Many who have long been here need to have easier pathways to naturalization.
Average white English-speaking church member is xenophobic and is partial to right-wing lies. What’s interesting are the Hispanic members, many of whom are far more open-minded about migration.
It just makes me sad that our government and almost half of Americans want to be so cruel to immigrants. Especially b ‘cause their ancestors came here as immigrants and refugees with no legal process. They just showed up.
Generally, I’m in favor of immigration, as well as prudent and practical reasons to control/regulate it. I recognize that the U.S. immigration system has been broken for a very long time, and that immigration law has long been one of the most unevenly- and unfairly-applied areas of law in the U.S., long before the current administration took their shot at “improving” it. But we need to at least try to administer it fairly when we can, and if we want to fix it, it seems like we are headed in the opposite direction these days. I believe that non-citizen migrants/asylum seekers should still be entitled to due process and fair hearings, and people who enter unlawfully, even those who are found to be engaged in criminal activity (e.g. drug smugglers) are still entitled to dignity, respect and humane treatment. Thuggish tactics like targeted raids by masked ICE agents (which is, by the way, extremely cowardly), incarceration in hellish places without trial and mass deportations are methods I would normally consider un-American, but here we are, sadly.
There is no easy answer, but we could start to improve the situation by getting rid of heavy-handed enforcement (and hopefully reclaim some moral high ground eventually) while stopping treating everyone lining up at our borders as criminals until proven otherwise. We also need to give special asylum consideration to those coming across our southern border (from Central and South American countries), since many of those people are fleeing violence and instability caused in no small part by uninvited American interventions in their homelands across the last century or so; we owe them something. Same goes with Iraqis and Afghans.
Immigration is crucial to helping us maintain an economically sustainable population in spite of lowering birth rates. Other developed countries, like Japan, are headed for major economic crises in the coming years as a result of an aging population, low birth rates, and historic resistance to immigration due to ethnic/cultural homogeneity. The current tide of xenophobia we are experiencing in the U.S. is really just racism cloaked in the desire for security and lowering crime, which is why we get outlandish, patently false claims of immigrants eating pets; nothing is too absurd to confirm one’s own biases.
I imagine most of the active Mormons I know have conservative views on immigration that align with those trumpeted by the typical right-wing sources. I’ve even heard one woman in my ward opine that the main reason we send missionaries to proselytize foreign lands is “to build up the Church in those countries, so the people stay in those counties and don’t come here”, then proceeded on a diatribe about the danger of immigrants stealing our jobs and soaking up our resources, etc. This is a single example, but I’ve heard enough similar opinions coming from Church members that I don’t believe it’s anomalous. There is still a significant disconnect between the current discourse about immigration coming from self-proclaimed followers of Jesus Christ, and the actual teachings of Jesus, which is disappointing.
I’m all for Legal Immigration – and I celebrate those who have the patience, and perform the hard work to become citizens. As for those who are here illegally, get out. Stay out. We have every right (as a country) to have firm borders, legal processes and the ability to govern who comes there. As for the “nutters” who believe otherwise….and beat the endless drum of “there are no borders” – you are a danger to the Republic and to society. Under no circumstances will I support you.
grizzerbear55: What are your views about things like asylum seekers? Rather than just a quick drive by of “legal immigration good / everyone else get out” can you share your specific ideas about the thorny issues laid out. Asylum seekers are a huge part of the current situation, they are not all equal, and seeking asylum is legal, but subjective. How would you modify the asylum structure?
Personally, I think the “asylum seekers” provision has been horribly (and deliberately) abused. I’m sure that there are some circumstances where this can/should be applied. But (perhaps unfortunately) the mess and corruption has to be cleaned up first – otherwise the application abuse will simply continue.
” beat the endless drum of ‘there are no borders'”
Does anyone really say that? Are they in any way politically influential? It is overwhelmingly apparent that the Democratic Party strongly favors deportations and expulsions. Obama deported more than 3 million people. Joe Biden used Trump’s Title 42 to expel 2.8 million from the US. The idea of open borders certainly doesn’t seem popular or politically influential in the least.
“As for those who are here illegally, get out. Stay out.”
What if they’re minors who have lived here for most of their lives? Shouldn’t there be a legal process created for them to acquire citizenship? As for staying out, what if they go back and then come legally? A lot of these folks are visa overstays. I think what is going on here is a sort of illegal-phobia as if they are committing some sort of heinous crime by being here illegally. This fear is irrational. Of course we should have orderly immigration. Deportations and expulsions are a must. We can’t let everyone in who wants to the come to the US all at once. Border control is highly essential. That said, there are nearly 800,000 people who get naturalized each year in the US, including during Trump’s first term. The US citizenry is becoming more diverse simply by legal immigration, by the day. Also, consider this. What if all of a sudden people simply started having more babies. Would that be a cause for crisis with the population growth going up? Growth has always been a challenge, but we’ve always striven to accommodate it. We need growth, after all. What if instead of babies it was migrants? What if instead of 800,000 naturalizations a year, it were 1.6 million a year? Would you get panicked all of a sudden? The lack of nuanced conversation on immigration is incredibly frustrating. Media personalities love to generate attention by stories of criminal immigrants and big numbers of people crossing the border and fentanyl being brought in (actually the people bringing the fentanyl in are overwhelmingly citizens). It is a shame that the fine details of immigration are not presented in much of media and that people are so easily misled and spooked by scare stories.
Let everyone who wants asylum do the hard work that people like Melania did getting half naked for photos and being a “genius”. Of course, there’s that other route: being family of an Einstein genius. …which somehow seems to override being an actual Communist official.
Sanctuary was implemented as a law enforcement tool. It helps local law enforcement by insuring that undocumented persons can report crimes without fear of deportation.
There is an interesting history to the migrant stream which shows that the flow of workers was part of the territory conquered by the US in a blatant land grab for many centuries.
As far as the current political situation, it looks a lot like Germany 1933. Most POC I know saw that the Tea Party and its subsequent MAGA manifestation were propelled by racism and not economics. As an example, inflation is higher than it was a year ago, yet there’s nary a peep from the RWNJs. see also the thus far successful effort to cast DEI as affirmative action, the renaming of military bases after Confederate generals with the ludicrous facade of choosing some unknown officer with the identical name, and tRump demanding that high ranking officers cannot be promoted without his interview and their bent knee.
Would I change the 14th Amendment? No.
I am in favor of immigration and do not think that there are too many.
I do see immigrants altering American culture. Do I clutch my pearls about it? No.
I see room for improvement with immigration, but I understand the competing issues. I do not approve of the post 2025 ICE enforcement actions. If anything needed to change it would be fining and imprisoning those who knowingly employed illegal immigrants.
I don’t know how the average church member thinks about immigration. It’s never come up.
jarder3rd: “fining and imprisoning those who knowingly employed illegal immigrants” Here’s a starting point. Everyone on the NextDoor app who is looking for a “reasonably priced” house cleaner, landscaper or handyman and would never pay the “outrageous” prices that companies charge. If you made a Venn diagram of these folks and Trump voters who want illegal immigrants OUT, there would be a lot of overlap.
I attended an airshow last Saturday, with a crowd of devoted aeronautic enthusiasts, many of whom are ex-military and military-adjacent. Lots of military planes, lots of American flags, etc. It was wonderful and delightfully patriotic, reminiscent of my happy childhood memories in July throughout the 1980s. I have Air Force family, all of whom are reliably conservative politically. I am one of the rare liberal-leaning ones. Anyway, the point of this comment is that my heart was so thrilled with the tone of the event. I was shocked – in a good way – that the only American-centered song that played over the loudspeakers during the show was Neil Diamond’s “America”. I hadn’t heard that song in years! It was a regular song at annual fireworks shows in Northern Utah in my youth, and the message about immigration was not political in any way during those years (at least in my innocent child’s perspective), rather hopeful and proud. To hear it again – and have it be the sole representative of patriotic music in this fairly conservative crowd at this deeply American and fairly conservative event – was really significant. Does it mean anything? Is this just the event planner’s personal preferences showing, or is there a broader vibe toward accepting immigration as an integral component of American patriotism? It gave me hope. (I need some hope.)
A great, balanced OP. I think that there are 3 things that conservatives wanted the Trump administration to do when it came back in.
1. Control the border and stop the massive flow of illegal aliens. This has been done.
2. Arrest, incarcerate, and deport the criminal aliens. This is underway and is getting headlines as it does. Some local governments are less than cooperative with the feds on this.
3. Try to identify and deport the illegals who flooded across the border recently, especially in the past 4 years. This is going slowly and cannot be done easily without lots of time or a huge imposition on lots of different parts of civil society.
I am all for allowing refugees into our country, but would like the myriad abuses that happened under Biden to be stopped. I can believe that many Venezuelans feel persecuted by the tyrannical and corrupt socialist government there. The US is not at fault for that fiasco. Those who walked from there to here should have applied for refugee status in Columbia, as international law stipulates. Migrants from countries where the government has improved should be sent home.
In 2024 Biden curbed the flow of migrants into across the US-Mexico border massively. In early 2024 Biden was on the cusp of passing a bipartisan bill that would drastically increase border security. This was scuttled by Trump who didn’t want to solve the immigration issue at that point but needed it to be a problem to use as a cudgel against the Democrats.
The deportation of criminal migrants has always taken place and has never been blocked. To suggest otherwise is false.
Biden expelled 2.8 million migrants under Title 42.
Conservatives were not interested in the fine details about immigration under Biden. They wanted to create a false reality about immigration and then strawman attack the Democrats and Biden all they could. Conservatives also have wanted to curb legal migration to the US and many of them support racist xenophobic ideas such as the Great Replacement Theory. Also, remember when Trump false accused Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio of eating cats and dogs leading racists and xenophobes to harass and attack Haitians there? These were legal migrants. Their employers spoke praises of them and their work ethic. Raw racism was at the root of the attacks against them. Conservatism in its current form under Trump is not rational set of ideas. It is a mental disease.
Lastly was the arrival of migrants into the US in larger numbers during the early Biden years a bad thing? Quite the opposite. Employers struggled to fill jobs because of COVID. Who do you think filled those jobs and saved the US from economic downturn? Immigrants.
el so
Name three of the myriad Biden abuses. Words matter.
My local government is not impeding the feds, but we are impeding masked unbadged men in unmarked cars.
You could have saved time and just said you hate brown people.
Well said, Chadwick. This el oso commenter has a long history of bad faith. She regularly pushes conspiracy theories and aggressively hits people with logical fallacies. I believe she has pushed racism too. If I were a mod I would immediately delete her comments.
I have nuanced, idiosyncratic views on immigration. I believe immigration is good for society from an economic standpoint, but the societal costs and economic benefits, both legal and illegal, are felt very differently depending on where you sit on the socioeconomic ladder. That said, border security is non-negotiable. I do think we need an orderly process for deciding who gets to come to our country and participate in our economy.
I think the Democratic Party has been co-opted by the most radical voices on the left and should return to an Obama-era approach to immigration—one that’s actually quite close to where Trump is now. He seems to have clipped Tom Homan’s wings by shielding industries like hospitality, agriculture, and construction from aggressive ICE raids. That said, the Trump administration has done enormous harm to the U.S. economy by targeting productive, non-criminal immigrants and employing abhorrent enforcement tactics. Needless to say, no ICE officer should be wearing a mask or behaving in an abusive, aggressive manner. Tellingly, even many recent Hispanic immigrants hold more conservative, hardline views on immigration than some of the far-left activist organizations that pushed for relaxed policies under the Biden administration.
Asylum — Asylum is largely being abused. This is partly due to long wait times—often years—and the practice of releasing asylum seekers into the interior with minimal tracking. I believe all asylum seekers should be required to wear a tracker or ankle monitor so that, if and when their claims are adjudicated and denied, they can be quickly deported. Brad D.’s suggestion—that asylum claims should only be processed at U.S. embassies in the home or an adjacent country—is likely the right step in my view. With the rise of social media and TikTok, the dissemination of “the right answers” for gaming the system has led to widespread exaggeration or outright dishonesty. The U.S. should also push for more relocation within home countries or neighboring ones as viable alternatives.
Visa overstays — I agree with Ji on visa overstays. The penalties should be substantial enough to deter abuse. I support collecting biometric data on all entrants, and any visa overstayer should face escalating, serious consequences—including ineligibility for citizenship, green cards, or work authorization. This should apply broadly, including to student visa holders who violate terms by working illegally.
Higher ed — Any graduate from a U.S. institution of higher education should be awarded a green card and placed on a fast track to citizenship—especially those who start companies and create jobs. I also support reforming the H1B visa system to give more flexibility to holders, who are frequently exploited by U.S. tech firms and Indian outsourcing companies that flood the application system and lease out slots. U.S. companies should be able to purchase essentially unlimited H1B visas for high-skilled workers on the open market, but at a high price. This would benefit the middle and working class by boosting the supply of foreign-trained professionals (e.g., doctors) in underserved rural areas. At the same time, I’m wary of large companies using H1B visas to depress wages for native-born workers while failing to invest in educational reforms that help U.S. citizens develop needed STEM skills—especially in math.
Guest worker program — We need a strong, well-structured guest worker program. I thought the recent “One Big Beautiful Bill” was mostly a disaster, but one smart component was the proposed tax on remittances. That’s a practical way to generate revenue from immigrant labor. If we greatly expand the guest worker pool, there would still be a significant net benefit to workers sending money home. But if some of that remittance revenue were earmarked for programs like Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, it would make expanded legal immigration and guest worker programs more acceptable to nativist Americans who feel the country is changing too fast.
Fiscal impact — I find Cato’s study The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the United States persuasive. It concluded that the average long-term fiscal impact of each new immigrant is a net positive $259,000 in government revenue (in net present value, combining dynamic and generational accounting). That said, those numbers reflect the federal level. I disagree with California’s decision to extend state-funded health insurance to undocumented immigrants, and I support Governor Newsom’s push to scale that back. I also believe the Trump administration was right to challenge states that use federal matching funds to cover undocumented care.
14th Amendment — I support ending birthright citizenship. I believe it can be done through an act of Congress that clarifies the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The original text was written with freed slaves in mind, not undocumented immigrants crossing the border. Notably, Senator Harry Reid introduced the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993 to challenge automatic citizenship for children of undocumented parents, stating, “no sane country would do that.” Most European nations do not grant automatic citizenship in this way. It’s not cruel or unusual—it’s a rational policy designed to reduce demand-pull factors for illegal immigration. As for stateless individuals, we can address that the way European countries do, without resorting to blanket birthright policies.
Alternative pathway to citizenship — For children of undocumented immigrants, I would support some form of alternative pathway to citizenship. This could revolve around national service—such as military service, the Peace Corps, or similar forms of public service or voluntarism—or successful graduation from an accredited higher-education institution or vocational training program. These pathways reflect a commitment to the country and could serve as a fair compromise between open-ended amnesty and blanket exclusion.
Housing — I have to address the racist remarks JD Vance made in Ohio. You can’t talk about immigration without tackling the elephant in the room: exploding housing costs. One of the main reasons people are susceptible to populist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric is housing affordability. Vance and Trump scapegoated Haitian immigrants for rising housing prices, which is simply false. The real culprits are restrictive zoning and land-use laws. But it’s much easier for a xenophobic politician to point to hard-working immigrants and say, “They’re the problem.” That’s economic illiteracy—but we still need to address the underlying issues. Ultimately, immigration levels should be tied to housing supply elasticity at the county or state level.
Sanctuary cities — I have no problem with local law enforcement cooperating with ICE. Elections have consequences, and policy outcomes should reflect voter choices. But no one can claim the Trump administration hid its intentions. I loudly supported Harris and opposed Trump, in part because his nomination convention was filled with “mass deportation” rhetoric. Many of his voters believed he would only go after “the bad guys,” not dishwashers, landscapers, or Home Depot day laborers. But even though these individuals are non-criminal, he is within his rights to pursue their deportation—despite the economic harm and human cost. That’s what voters chose, sadly. It’s also entirely appropriate for the federal government to assess immigration status within jails and prisons and swiftly deport criminal offenders. There’s likely a real deterrent effect in that approach.
So yeah, that’s a lot. But it reflects my full view of immigration:
—Reduce demand-pull factors by ending birthright citizenship through legislation.
—Create more legal pathways through expanded guest worker programs, remittance taxes, and service-based or merit-based routes to citizenship for children of the undocumented.
—Remove populist scapegoating by liberalizing housing laws so immigrants aren’t blamed for problems they didn’t cause.
@Jacob L
I appreciate your detailed comments and find I both agree and disagree on some points, but I confess I really don’t understand your theory of ending birthright citizenship by legislation. It seems like an inherent contradiction to say someone living in our borders is not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US, yet they can be arressted, charged with a crime, or deported, if applicable. Isn’t that the very definition of being “subject to the jurisdiction”? To me that text suggests that it’s trying to exempt people such as the families of foreign diplomats, who are indeed not subject to the jurisdiction of the US in any meaningful sense. I just don’t think this can be done by legislation; it’s going to require a constitutional amendment. And I’d be willing to bet the current supreme court agrees with me. We’ll probably learn their views on this question in the next term.
I’m late to this discussion. So much to say, but most of it has already been said. Just a few comments on Political Asylum. The notion that it is overused by cheaters as an excuse is nonsense. I am quite sure that those that think or say this have probably never had a conversation with an asylum seeker. As an attorney I have handled a few asylum cases pro bono. I recently took one representing one of our missionaries during our time as mission leaders. I have yet to meet an asylum seeker that has not been through hell. The problem is the standard for asylum “reasonable fear of persecution by the government” lacks clarity and understanding.
A few examples of people I have represented may help:
A women from El Salvador who was targeted by the death squads after she was elected the pres. of the nurses union. You know according to right wing governments unions are really commies in disguise. These death squads targeted her and she went into hiding. They killed her daughter to flush her out of hiding, expecting her to attend the funeral. She fled to the US and filed for asylum. Denied – because El Salvador was US ally and of course our allies are not the bad guys. Right?
The missionary worked as a delivery driver. He was held up beaten and required to pay “a safe passage fee” to the gang to continue on his route. He saw no other choice. Each time he entered the area and was stopped the “fee” went up until the point it was nearly his entire earnings. He went to the police who listened and took down the information. The next time he encountered the gang they beat up and told him to never go to the police again. He fled to another city. But the gang found him and continued the beatings and threats. Corruption runs deep. In desperation he fled to the US and requested asylum. The hearing is in a few months. The chances are slim because, again Honduras (in this case) is an ally.
These stories are real and legion! A nation, a people, a political party, a church, or an individual that would turn their back on these folks CANNOT call themselves compassionate, ethical, or Christian. Fortunately the CJCLDS provides some level of refuge and support to undocumented individuals. They serve in calling at all local levels (except bishop). They serve missions. The fully participate.
Lastly, in my legal practice I represent a large number of Ag operations. They would not survive without immigrant labor. They have perpetual job postings. Occasionally, a local shows up and is always hired. They last a day, maybe two. Our country and politicians are so ignorant of the issues we face under the mass deportation America First battle cry.
Jacob L, I appreciate your insight. But I disagree with you about birthright citizenship. Especially the argument of “Most European nations do not grant automatic citizenship in this way.”
You’re right that most European countries don’t grant citizenship upon birth in their countries. But your argument seems to be based on some suggestion that Europe is enlightened and doesn’t have birthright citizenship, therefore the US can still be enlightened and not have birthright citizenship. There are a few European countries that are well-run and worthy of emulating in many regards. But the whole concept is what Europe is and is supposed to be is a massive impediment to its progress. For the political geography of Europe is based on decades of ethnonationalism. Its borders are the results of brutal warfare during the 1900s and in many cases warfare that happened even centuries before. When it comes to the concept of citizenship, the US should have no interest in emulating Europe whatsoever. Only a few countries in Europe are absorbing and naturalizing non-white, non-European-descended migrants in a larger scale. The UK, France, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Nordic countries. And the openness to accepting migrants is being met with great pushback there. Throughout so much of Europe is the idea that you can’t truly be Romanian, Greek, Spanish, Polish, etc. unless you have genetic roots there. With most of Europe’s birthrate plunging, we have a problem. Europe has to grow more accepting of the idea that anyone can become a German, Italian, etc. because migration is the only thing that will save them in the near future. The beauty of the US is that anyone can become an American. The American identity isn’t attached to race, genes, ethnicity, or even first language. The US broke off from Europe to get away from oppressive traditions and practices. Europe has changed a lot since. But many of these oppressive traditions still weigh it down.
@Quentin
“I appreciate your detailed comments and find I both agree and disagree on some points, but I confess I really don’t understand your theory of ending birthright citizenship by legislation.”
The 14th Amendment is straightforward on this, with clear precedent in the case of children of foreign diplomats. Children born in the U.S. to diplomats serving here are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore do not automatically become U.S. citizens at birth. Following U.S. laws, as diplomats must, is not the same as being “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.
@dlcroc58
I fully acknowledge there are many dire situations where an asylum claim is warranted. I don’t think we have strong data on the prevalence of proven fraud, possible fraud, or claims that are simply too weak to meet the standard. That said, the UNHCR counted 3.1 million new individual asylum applications worldwide in 2024, and the year before the U.S. processed 1.2 million, roughly 33% of the global total. Many countries besides the U.S. are safe for asylum seekers, and I believe the international community should aim for a more equitable distribution of asylum seekers among safe countries or safe regions within countries.
@Brad D
I don’t believe declining birth rates will prove to be a problem. In my view, this is the inverse of the Malthusian theory when near-starvation was the worry with insufficient food production. Women should have as many or as few children as they choose, but I strongly reject the pro-natalist coercion coming from those who would pressure women into giving birth as a “duty” to repopulate. We’ll do just fine with a smaller population—or a larger one—whatever the future holds.
Diplomatics do, in fact, have diplomatic immunity. They are immune from civil and criminal charges. Undocumented immigrants are not.
As far as asylum goes, countries like Germany and Greece take in a lot more people per capita. There’s plenty of room to accomodate more asylum seekers in the U.S., and plenty of jobs for them too.
@Tim
I’m not equating undocumented immigrants with diplomats in legal status, only noting the parallel that children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats are not granted citizenship.
Diplomats aren’t above the law. They’re expected to follow it, and their immunity can be waived. Some have been prosecuted, though the most common consequence is expulsion.
Given that, it seems inconsistent to argue that children of undocumented immigrants, who have no legal permission to be in the country, should be granted citizenship under the 14th Amendment, while children of diplomats, who do have legal permission to be here, should not.