Immigration Reform

After 57 years since comprehensive reform, the share of immigrants of the U.S. population has tripled and encounters at the border are at all-time high.[1] Here’s a three-part plan for reform:

I.              Legal Immigration

Focus on expanding innovation and growing the tax base. Let’s shift from family migration to educated and job seeking individuals. My plan calls for “unlimited” employment and education based green cards under the following conditions:

• Employer must self-attest that sponsored candidate is better qualified than any other candidates. Wage must be 50% above the regional (MSA) median.

• Foreign nationals who receive a degree from an accredited US graduate institution will be granted green cards.

To account for this expansion, I propose a family-based immigration cap at 500,000 per year, and prioritizing applicants with job offers or who have actively searched for work. Furthermore, we should increase then cap the admission of refugees to 150k (from 120k).

II.            Illegal Immigration

With record-high border apprehensions, we need urgent action to renovate and adequately staff ports of entry to improve security and address economic impacts. The 48 “ports-of-entry” are overwhelmed, the DHS has demonstrated significant construction needs.[2] The majority of drugs coming into our country come through these land ports. Required staffing and security measures will cost over $3B.[3]

We must address the unfair burden on border communities, which is estimated in the billions.[4] Let’s increase appropriations (~$5B = 25% increase in border spending) to be directed towards welfare needs in local communities along the southwest border. Second, we must increase judging teams in the EOIR courts to manage and mitigate the two million case backlog.[5]

III.          Amnesty

My proposed solution for the 11m undocumented migrants in the US includes immediate citizenship for employed individuals, with five years of US residency, or any who are enrolled in a university or graduate education program. For everyone with a clean felony record and five years of US residency (or arrival before turning 18), they will receive green card status and a path to citizenship.

[1] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states

[2] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/facilities-construction/2022/02/gsa-outlines-plan-to-spend-3-4b-on-infrastructure-upgrades-along-u-s-borders/

[3] https://www.ttnews.com/articles/gsa-spend-34-billion-update-26-land-ports-entry

[4] https://cis.org/Testimony/Realities-Border-Crisis-Unfair-Burden

[5] https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/