There Is No Line for Many Immigrants Who Want to Come Here Legally. We’ve Got to Fix Our System.
By Jorge Loweree
Mr. Loweree is the managing director of programs and strategy at the American Immigration Council.
During the Republican National Convention, speakers repeatedly tried to draw a contrast between asylum seekers who’ve crossed the southern border in recent years and immigrants who’ve entered the country through other channels. As Vivek Ramaswamy put it, legal immigrants like his parents “deserve the opportunity to secure a better life for your children in America.” Others deserve deportation, “because you broke the law.”
Elected leaders like to invoke this narrative that there’s an easy, “right” and a hard, “wrong” way to immigrate to the United States, because it makes the solution for fixing our broken immigration system seem simple. We just need more law-abiding people to get in the right line.
But the reality that is all too clear to immigrants navigating our byzantine system, and the lawyers and advocates who try to help them, is that there is no line to get into for a vast majority of people who wish to come to the United States. If the government is serious about securing the border, we have to make it easier for people to come through legal channels.
The U.S. admits a tiny fraction of people who want to immigrate
Number of people who said they want to immigrate or who legally applied, compared to those granted permanent residence
158 million people would like to immigrate to the U.S.
32 million people actually began the application process in 2021
24 million
workers
200,000
refugees
8 million
family members
200,000
workers
20,000
refugees
700,000
family members
Only 900,000 people were allowed to enter legally
Sources: Gallup, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Note: Data was originally compiled in “Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible” by David Bier for the Cato Institute. The number of people who would like to immigrate is taken from a 2018 Gallup poll.
Opinion | Want to Fix the Immigration Mess? Make It Easier to Come Here Legally. - The New York Times
Our system of legal immigration isn’t set up to reward “good” choices. It is littered with arbitrary caps, bureaucratic delays and redundant processes that wring years of effort and money out of the precious few who qualify.
