The decisive election of President-elect Trump, driven by concerns about illegal immigration, provides our national political leaders a mandate to modernize our immigration laws and secure America's future as the world's strongest economy and a beacon of innovation and opportunity. While it is rightfully a core agenda priority, it is a big lift due to decades of inaction. With President Trump's bold history of taking on huge challenges, he can succeed with an immigration policy that reflects not just our values, but our aspirations.
A good place to start is to export undocumented criminals. We must deport the non-citizen troublemakers and visiting students violating United States laws, especially those financed by our nation's enemies. Indeed, the Biden Justice Department found that Iran funded the anti-Israel protestors, many not even students, disrupting U.S. campuses. The Trump administration can act on those findings.
Other important immigration actions will take time but are important: Completing the wall with Mexico, adding border agents and judges, and creating an infrastructure necessary to deport those hurting us while gaming the U.S. system.
But immigration can't just be about who we deport - it must be about who we want to allow to join our nation. After all, we are a nation of immigrants—defined by resilience, innovation, and diversity, and we are hamstrung by an old and gamed immigration policy out of touch with economic realities and hurting our ability to compete globally.
Today, immigration laws heavily favor chain migration (officially known as family reunification), the process by which green card holders or legal U.S. residents may sponsor a family member for immigration. In 2022, nearly 78% of 466,000 new green-card holders were immediate family of US citizens and residents. We need to fix the laws that put distant or non-productive relatives over skilled or needed individuals who can drive our economy forward.
Those advocating for unlimited chain immigration should be willing to put up the money they will cost us. It makes sense that for new immigrants, their sponsoring U.S. relatives, potential employers, or others to contribute financially—covering benefits that long time citizens earn through years of work. This would ensure fairness while freeing up pathways for skilled and needed workers to enter the U.S. It would also cut the actual government costs of providing benefits to new citizens, many of them who are older and tax our health care system - despite never having worked or paid taxes in the US.
While we see the problems of immigration, we cannot ignore the positives immigrants bring: they and their U.S. born children represent more than 30% of the population—and their contributions are profound. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. unicorn companies, like SpaceX and Stripe, were founded by immigrants or their children. Elon Musk, the billionaire immigrant businessman and a confidante of President-elect Trump, posted on X that it’s “very important to make it easy for talented people to immigrate to America!” And recently, Trump declared how he supports the "great” H-1B skilled visa program.
Trump is right. H-1B is a great national strategy and gets us the best and brightest! Our universities attract the world's smartest people and if we educate them and they share our values, why not encourage them to stay in the U.S.? We should staple a green card to their diplomas. H-1B visas are a start, but if we want U.S. manufacturers and farmers, we need to make sure they have the labor they need. Taxpayer money given to semiconductor manufacturing is wasted if these same companies can't attract the talent they need.
The U.S. needs a system and process that supports and values the work of immigrants in a legal and safe manner. Most immigrants from south of the border are religious, pro-family with strong values and want to give their children a better life. They often fill jobs Americans can’t or won’t do, like cleaning and building houses, farmwork, food processing and retail. Our economy and lifestyle rely on available workers. With near full employment, immigrants fill jobs for which we lack workers. Many of them pay into social security and never receive anything from the system. We need to legitimize many of them, get drivers licenses and give them or their children a path to citizenship based on taxes paid, military service and positive contributions to society.
Finally, we need to figure out a winning formula to give citizenship to the Dreamers—the undocumented immigrant youth brought to the U.S. who may only speak English, never having lived in any other country. If they work, pay taxes, and contribute to society, we need to legitimize them. This is the right thing to do and good for our economy. Data on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) by FWD.us show most U.S. voters support strong, bipartisan legislation that would pair an earned path to citizenship for Dreamers with investments in border security.
Reforming immigration requires bold leadership. Rationalizing immigration, expanding pathways for skilled workers and legitimizing those helping our economy are not just sound policies—they are investments in America’s legacy. President Reagan described our nation as the “shining city on the hill,” and President-elect Trump can brighten that glow and strengthen our future.
