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Immigration is a top issue for voters in 2024 because of the surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Recently, the Independent Center gauged voter sentiment on various issues, including immigration, as part of our “We Can Do Better” series. When asked how they think America’s immigration system is working, 86 percent of adults believe we can do better. Only 11 percent say the status quo is working.
Clearly, voters want Congress to modernize America’s immigration laws, but few in Washington, DC, seem willing to address the issue. It’s far more convenient to use immigration as a political bludgeon. Doing nothing, though, isn’t an option as Americans become more frustrated by most Republicans and Democrats' willingness to listen to voters beyond the base of their respective parties.
In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which eliminated discriminatory restrictions on immigration from non-European countries. The last significant changes in immigration laws came via the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The legislation was partly a product of the Commission on Immigration Reform, which made recommendations to Congress on ways to change immigration laws. The Immigration Reform and Control Act included penalties for employers who hire undocumented migrants, H-2A and H-2B guest worker programs. It gave legal status to migrants who entered the United States before 1982.
When signing the Immigration Reform and Control Act into law in November 1986, President Ronald Reagan said, “We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.”
Since 1986, Congress has only tweaked immigration laws. Efforts to bring our immigration laws into the 21st century have been made, but those efforts have been met with resistance from the fringes of both parties.
In 2007, President George W. Bush and a bipartisan group of a dozen senators were dubbed the “Gang of 12,” including John McCain (R-AZ), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Ted Kennedy (D-MA). The product of their effort was the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act. Among the changes proposed by the bill were a point-based/merit-based system, a new guest worker program, a path to citizenship for migrants who were under the age of 18 when they entered the United States, and increased border enforcement and security measures. Ultimately, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act wasn’t able to advance over a crucial procedural hurdle in the Senate.
The Senate was able to pass a different bill in 2013–Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act–with bipartisan support. The legislation included several modernizations of the immigration system, such as a path to legal status for migrants, a path to citizenship for those in the United States before 2012, and the end of per-country quotas. Although the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act would have reduced the budget deficit by nearly $200 billion over ten years, the House didn’t consider the bill.
The most recent House and Senate efforts in 2018 were even less successful. Although there have been bipartisan bills, immigration is increasingly partisan and is often used as a political bludgeon to score points during an election cycle, with 2024 being the most recent example.
Cutting Through the Noise About Immigration
If you’ve watched cable news, you’re undoubtedly aware of the heartbreaking stories of migrants, predominately from Central and South America, trying to make their way to the U.S.-Mexico border, most of whom are unaccompanied children. These migrants faced danger, disease, dehydration, and starvation on their trek. Some never make it. In 2022, nearly 700 migrants either died or disappeared en route to or at the border.
Without question, the surge of migrants at the Southern border since 2021 presents significant policy challenges, ranging from humanitarian concerns to border security issues to human trafficking to drug trafficking. Unfortunately, Congress is bitterly divided on immigration policy, in part because of the concerning growth of nationalist and nativist sentiment.
To be clear, border security is an essential aspect of the broader discussion about immigration. However, Congress needs to consider cause and effect. This consideration must include why migrants leave their home countries to come to the United States. Those reasons range from drug-related violence to extreme poverty to political repression and severe drought. These circumstances are often left out of the debate at a time when isolationism has reared its ugly head in the United States political discourse.
Another cause of the surge in migrants is changes in other countries' immigration laws. For example, Mexico now requires a visa for Venezuelans. Rather than arriving in the United States by plane via Mexico, Venezuelans are taking the much more prolonged and perilous land route through Central America. The effect of the change is that Venezuelan citizens accounted for 9.8 percent of U.S. Border Patrol encounters in FY 2023. In FY 2019, that figure was 0.3 percent.
The cause-and-effect also includes how difficult it is to gain entry into the United States through a visa. For example, H-1B visas (highly educated temporary foreign workers) are capped at 65,000 annually. Another 20,000 H-1B visas are available for individuals with a master’s degree or a doctorate. H-2B visas (temporary guest workers) are capped at 66,000. Family members of those who receive the visa count toward the cap. For many who seek refuge in the United States, seeking asylum or temporary protected status is the only possibility of gaining entry.
Interestingly, the surge in migrants at the Southern border coincided with Title 42, a policy that Congress included in the legislative response to COVID-19. Title 42 was meant to limit the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Rather than migrants (excluding families and children) claiming asylum at the border and being allowed to wait for their hearing in the United States, they were immediately expelled.
Although Title 42 was a hot-button issue before its termination in May 2023, the number of migrants encountered has declined. Also noteworthy is that the number of “getaways”–migrants who didn’t encounter the U.S. Border Patrol–has also decreased by 70 percent.
The claim that migrants are bringing crime to the United States doesn’t match reality. That’s not to say that some migrants don’t have criminal records or commit crimes. Real people have been impacted by these crimes. For example, the murder of Laken Riley, who was killed in February 2024 on the campus of the University of Georgia by a migrant. Multiple aspects of the system failed Ms. Riley, including local law enforcement in New York and Georgia, who had encounters with her killer. The fact is that the migrant population is less likely to commit crimes than the native-born population of the United States.
The partisan rhetoric that America has an “open border” also doesn’t match reality. It’s indisputable that there was a record surge in migrants at the Southern border. However, the number of U.S. Border Patrol staff along the Southwest border nearly doubled between FY 2000 and FY 2020. Before FY 2021, when encounters at the Southwest border exceeded 1.7 million, the previous high was in FY 2000, at 1.6 million.
While Congress and Americans need to have a discussion about how best to secure the border, we also need to have a long overdue discussion about modernizing our immigration laws and why.
America Needs Immigration
Population growth in the United States has slowed for many years, but that slow growth was highlighted when the Census Bureau reported that our population increased by only 0.1 percent in 2020. Although that figure needs context in the backdrop of the pandemic–with population growth climbing up to 0.5 percent in 2023—we have, as a society, decided to have fewer children. There are consequences to a society that opts not to replace itself fully.
Earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office released updated demographic projections for the United States. These data were alarming because they showed that the United States would begin to see more deaths than births in the native-born population by 2040. From that point forward, unless the native-born population starts to have more children, the only population growth the United States will see is through immigration.
Because of immigration, our population will continue to grow, albeit slowly. However, if we end or curtail immigration, the population of the United States will decline. Under a scenario where immigration is curtailed, the Census Bureau estimates that our population will begin to fall in the 2040s. If immigration is eliminated, that decline will happen in this decade.
The ramifications of these scenarios are severe. Economic forecasts over the next decade already show the United States entering a period of anemic growth. There is not a single cause of this slower growth. It’s the consequence of various factors, including the rising cost of living, higher interest rates, and declining labor force participation. The data tell us that businesses are already struggling to find workers.
Economies and economic growth are determined by production. If the United States doesn’t boost its population, the anemic economic growth we’ve experienced and are expected to experience will continue. Of course, there are discussions about how to boost population growth. One of the frequently mentioned policies is the expansion of the Child Tax Credit, the creation of new tax incentives, or subsidizing, in various ways, the cost of childbirth or child care. Because slowing population growth is a problem across the industrialized world, governments of other countries have experimented with tax incentives. The trend still hasn’t reversed. Even if tax incentives and other policies worked, they would be a long-term policy solution.
Immigrants Contribute to Our Economy
In 2006, the Texas Comptroller released a report on the impact of undocumented migrants on the state’s budget and economy. The report found that migrants contributed $17.7 billion to the Texas economy and paid almost $1.6 billion in taxes. (Sales taxes, property taxes, etc.) However, migrants consumed about $1.2 billion in services. Their net fiscal contribution was in the black by $424 million.
Now, those data aren’t recent enough to tell us much about the impact migrants have on the economy today. Still, we know that migrants positively impact the economy as a whole through workforce productivity, which contributes to economic growth, and paying federal, state, and local taxes. This includes Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries who came into the United States as children and have remained here. Most of us wouldn’t consider DACA recipients to be “undocumented,” as many have attended college and earned degrees. Most are employed and pay taxes.
The Congressional Budget Office also recently noted that migration “is projected to expand the labor force and increase economic growth.” The projected increase in gross domestic product is 0.2 percent, while tax revenues will see a $1 trillion increase simply because more people are paying taxes.
The tax revenue piece is crucial because of the looming insolvency of the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund. The OASI Trust Fund is projected to be depleted in 2034, while the HI Trust Fund will be depleted in 2036. Beneficiaries will face immediate benefit cuts unless Congress comes up with a way to address the solvency of the trust funds.
The longer Congress waits, the more painful it will be, but one of the ways to make these trust funds solvent is to modernize our immigration laws to bring more immigrants to the United States and ensure those who are already here are paying taxes.
