[sanderjd]

This gets at another portion of the answer to the "what's your alternative suggestion?" question: I'd suggest Congress pass laws, rather than presidents making stuff up, illegally. This is clearly not a partisan point! Every president in my voting lifetime - Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden - has made up immigration law while Congress sat on its thumbs.

[apical_dendrite]

I agree with you.

I think there has to be a reasonable solution that gives legal status to the guy who's been here for 20 years and is making a positive contribution to society, but doesn't allow someone to show up and exploit loopholes to stay forever.

I think a reasonable compromise would look something like this:

* Make it much easier for people to get temporary visas for the kinds of jobs where we need migrant workers.

* Provide a pathway to citizenship for people who have been in this country for a very long time and are contributing to society.

* Make it very difficult for people to come to the US without a visa - e.g. make people apply for asylum outside of the US. Stop issuing temporary protected status to huge blocks of migrants.

Unfortunately, political polarization has basically made it impossible for Congress to solve real problems.

[sanderjd]

Yep, the solution is pretty clear in broad strokes, as you described, but the bases of both parties advocate for radically opposed policy through executive action, which just makes the situation worse.

[roamerz]

There have been many laws passed by Congress addressing immigration. It is against law to cross the border without authorization. This particular case exists as a result of not enforcing those laws. Pretty simple.

[sanderjd]

Despite past congresses passing laws, the system is not good. A major contributor to the problem of people immigrating illegally is that our legal immigration system is a total mess. This is why there have been a number of efforts at reforms over the past few decades. But none of them have worked, leaving us in this situation where presidents from both parties do all this illegal stuff by executive action.

[jfengel]

It's not quite that Congress has sat on its thumbs. Individual Congressmen have been (figuratively) screaming at each other. Committees are at each other's throats trying to get some sort of legislation to the table. Nobody can stand the possibility of giving the other side what they want -- at the insistence of their constituents.

The net result, of course, is identical to if they had all stayed home.

[sanderjd]

Yeah I think you just described what sitting on their thumbs looks like, for a legislative body :)

[pclmulqdq]

Exactly. People forget, but the first selective enforcement edict (on illegal immigration) came from HW Bush.