When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law breakers.
To be clear I am not making an argument that mass surveillance is needed to solve any problem.
[0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/green-card-holders-a...
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024... via https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/27/u-s-immig...
[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.TOTL.ZS?most_rec...
US vs EU vs OECD: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.TOTL.ZS?most_rec... - I'm pretty sure the values here include illegal immigration as well, so if you factor that in the US may be lower than the EU, but again still at historically very high levels.
The comparison with EU is not meaningful, especially since it isn't even a country. The population growth of the US and the world as a hole has also risen by more than that factor, even in the past two decades or so it has more than doubled.
What point are you making here specifically? Are you saying the law is considered broken unless all or most people that want to come to the US can come? If so, the citizens (or at least the government) of the country are the ones that decide its laws, not people who want to immigrate to that country.
>H-1B is a good example, it counts as immigration but it is really not
The fist link I gave only includes green cards issued, it doesn't include H-1B visas to begin with. In any case, H-1B is not that significant a source of immigration, it seems to account for less than 1 million people in the US.[0] And it pays better than immigrating illegally in 99% of cases, most people would take that. Also by your own metric immigrating illegally isn't immigration either. I don't see what specific point you are making. Are you saying people come here illegally because they don't want to come via an H-1B visa, or are you just making a general point that immigration is not that high?
>The comparison with EU is not meaningful, especially since it isn't even a country
Then why does the worldbank include it? And why use OECD as a metric for anything if it isn't a country?
>population growth of the US and the world
The "highest in 100 years" statistic is in terms of percentage, so that shouldn't be relevant.
[0] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/U... "As of September 30, 2019, the H-1B authorized-to-work population is approximately 583,420."
The backlog isn't a consequence of the law.
Is there a country that doesn't expect people to go through some kind of qualification process in order to immigrate legally? Here's what it looks like in Canada (where I live), for example: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... It's actually quite complex, and depends on additional provincial legislation. And then there's citizenship on top of that: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
> when they can just cross the border?
The entire point is that they legally in fact may not do so, and have only been doing so because of the lack of enforcement GP cites.
> When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law breakers.
We don't have nearly the same scale of problem in Canada. That probably has much more to do with only sharing an unsecured land border with a rich country.
No, I don't expect that at all. However the problem with your scenario isn't that they need to wait their turn, it's that they can "just cross the border". That fact that that has been allowed was an intentional policy decision.
This is also a choice for the people in charge of the border. Enforcing a border is a solved problem for a rich, large-population nation.
It's weird to see people (perhaps not you specifically) who often support dramatic gun control measures to address a tiny percentage of crime among the first to trot out the old saw that only a relative fraction of illegal migrants got that way by an illegal border crossing. 1/3rd is a lot. 1/3rd is a great start.
Addressing that 1/3rd also would address the real edge cases (as in there are only a few of them) like terrorists and serial criminals.
That said, I wish they would step up the prosecutions. It's critical to hammer away at economic incentives for illegal migration.
[0] https://www.cpr.org/2025/04/30/ice-fines-colorado-janitorial...
Your link shows the company was fined. what a joke. americans are rotting in prison and the company is fined? why the employers not in jail next to the illegal immigrants. Who was in a better position to obey the law? the wealthy employer who screwed over american workers by hiring illegal migrants, or the desperate migrant trying to earn an honest living?
I hope you reflect on your moral character before defending these people.
Hiring illegal labor can be difficult to prosecute, much like straw man gun purchases can be difficult to prosecute. In both cases I feel we should try much harder.
Removing the economic incentives for illegal migration is the only way to make a massive dent in it.
Well yes, that's what following the law means. They can't complain about it, it's not their country, and they don't have a say on the rules.
In a similar vein by your logic, if you are in a hurry, why should you obey traffic laws when you can just run a red light or a stop sign right?
A missing perspective here might be that even long term imprisonment isn't a deterrent for many migrants. The disparity in living conditions is just that steep.
Most of the immigration to the USA is driven for economic reasons, not political asylum or persecution. There is no right to immigrate in the USA just because you want to, you have to convince the government somehow to let you in.
> even long term imprisonment isn't a deterrent for many migrants
But quick deportation is. Imagine doing the whole trek from south/central america to the USA just to be sent back the next day. That's what deterring a lot of people now, wasting months of travel and money just to have it be worthless seems to be very dissuasive.
A lot of the latest immigration woes would be solved if the Venezuelan government was taken down and some real democratic government stepped in.
Agreed. But it is only human to want to improve your living conditions. Illegal immigrants are not claiming their migration was lawful, no one is, so the argument about their right to migrate is meaningless. The law requires them to convince the government to let them in, but a law you cannot enforce is also meaningless. if your family was in poverty, would you care what the american government thought about you trying to cross the border and work to earn a living? I mean, I wouldn't blame them if they stole, I think you're not appreciating the adversity of poverty.
Let's say working after illegally migrating is equivalent to theft. It is hypocritical, and therefore invalid, to expect a person in poverty to obey the law of a land they're not even in simply out of the goodness of their hearts. Deporting them makes sense, punishing them does not, since every single american would do the same or worse if the situation was reversed. you cannot punish people for doing the same thing you yourself would do.
You solve the root causes, punish employers for hiring them, subsidize mexico's economic development,etc... but what's happening now is sociopaths being let loose on the american people.
> But quick deportation is. Imagine doing the whole trek from south/central america to the USA just to be sent back the next day. That's what deterring a lot of people now, wasting months of travel and money just to have it be worthless seems to be very dissuasive.
I think less people will migrate in the near term, until work arounds to avoid ICE are developed. People will still attempt this. Have you read about migration to euorope? a lot of them literally die on the trip, a good chunk just get scammed before they even reach the mediterranean. people will still risk all of this. for them, their former situation is equivalent to death. For some, it is worse, because it isn't them that is suffering, it is their parents,kids,etc.. so the risks are all worth it, even it costs them their lives.
> A lot of the latest immigration woes would be solved if the Venezuelan government was taken down and some real democratic government stepped in.
No, it would be solved if employers were targeted instead. a lot of modern woes would be solved by putting business owners in prison. It just isn't politically palatable. off the books employees don't pay income tax, you can nail the employers for tax fraud conspiracy among other charges. They're screwing over not just the government, but americans looking for work. they're artificially deflating wages by abusing illegal migrants. The worst they get is a fine. But concentration camps for the migrants is tolerable?
Looks like now they are enforcing it hard.
> punishing them does not
Justice should be blind and punish all criminals equally, stop romanticizing poverty and crime. If you commit a crime, go to jail, and if you are a non citizen, get deported. Victims of society mentality only creates more victims, as the victims of the crime are ignored.
> Have you read about migration to euorope
Yes, and people die trying to get to the USA anyway, that doesn’t mean the government shouldn’t enforce borders. African immigration is a worse situation as there are several civil wars ongoing, and its poorer than South America. European countries should also enforce borders.
For your last point, I mentioned latest surge, which is mostly from Venezuela, but I agree, they should enforce i9 registration for all employment and deal out harsh punishment.