What I wish for in 2024: A coherent immigration policy

As another presidential election year dawns, I know that immigration will once again be in the national spotlight. Yet in their own way, neither candidate takes the issue seriously. One is willing to pour billions of dollars into border security measures that don’t work and pass the buck by sending vulnerable asylum-seekers to Mexico. The other is Donald Trump.

Something needs to be done. As a border native (born in El Paso, Texas), I can tell you that misinformation and hyperbole about the region are a staple of Republican campaigns, but I can also tell you that what’s happening now is not normal. There is a true crisis taking place — mostly of our own making.

If I have one wish for 2024, it is that the U.S. finally has an adult conversation about fixing immigration, starting with being clear about what we’re trying to fix.

To start, the asylum system is broken. It is overwhelmed and cannot keep pace with the number of applicants, leading to asylum-seekers being lawfully allowed into the country and then left in limbo for what could be a yearslong wait for their case to be resolved.

The system is then ripe for exploitation by those who do not qualify for asylum under current law but are using a claim of protection to enter, while the law itself — and the protection it offers — is undercut by the Biden administration’s Trump-like policies that endanger asylum-seekers and detrimentally complicate the process.

There’s no doubt that what’s happening at the border right now is desperation personified. No one picks up their kids and leaves their home behind to face a journey rife with extortion, assault, and death on a whim. Yet, being desperate is not grounds for asylum. Should it be? Are we our brother’s keeper? We may not agree on the answer, but Americans should have that discussion.

The immigration conversation must be coolheaded and pragmatic, and include what to do about the estimated 11 million people inside the U.S. without legal immigration status. Lawmakers must ask themselves, what does the United States need to succeed? Do we need more people? More temporary workers? How do we reap the benefits of immigration while controlling who enters our borders?

Whatever the solution, America needs to make a conscious choice about its immigration system as a whole, because what we have now is barely controlled chaos.

For decades, regardless if there’s a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, we have been perfectly fine with border enforcement efforts that have migrants dying by the hundreds annually in their efforts to enter the U.S. in search of a better life, whether drowning in the Rio Grande or collapsing in the Arizona heat.

Once immigrants are inside the country, the U.S. has apparently made peace with migrants — young and old — working under difficult and high-stress conditions in construction, meat processing, dairy farms, and picking fruits and vegetables. All vulnerable to unscrupulous employers and uncaring bureaucracies that provide little recourse if an immigrant is abused, injured, or killed on the job.

You hear it said often that immigrants will do what U.S.-born workers won’t. The fact that America runs on backbreaking labor — as long as those backs are wet — is an outrage. That we tacitly allow it to happen is an atrocity.

If we are to address immigration, in 2024 or beyond, we need to start by facing these harsh realities. What we do next will determine who we are as a nation.