The op-ed, “The Key Immigration Policy Question Should Be Isn’t There a Better Way?”, is available online HERE and is pasted in full below:
“A 19-year-old college scholarship recipient, thriving in a Georgia town since age 4, now facing deportation and life away from her younger sisters who are U.S. citizens. A Massachusetts family traumatized on Mother’s Day, as ICE agents shatter a car window to pull the father from their vehicle after leaving church. Restaurants in Washington, DC worried in the aftermath of immigration raids that worker shortages will force them to close down. Florida builders and contractors projecting higher costs and fewer employees in the construction industry. Uncertain dairy farmers in South Dakota and Wisconsin, a sluggish citrus harvest in California’s Central Valley, and anxious home health and caregiving employers across America. So many industries heavily built by and reliant on immigrant workers – and so many families who are immigrants or whose loved ones are immigrants –are now worried about their futures in Donald Trump’s America.
Watching the sheer volume of this cruelty and chaos and seeing the mounting costs to American communities and our economy, I ask myself: “Isn’t there a better way?”
Many of those being caught up in the deportation dragnet are the exact types of individuals who should have the opportunity to become legal workers and eventually U.S. citizens. As one worried coffee grower in Hawaii put it, “These are good, hard workers.. The government should make it easier for these people to come here and work.
I agree. And so does the majority of the American people. We’re only four months into Trump’s second term, yet the public already is recoiling from his mass deportation agenda. As my organization, America’s Voice, recently detailed in a memo synthesizing the latest immigration polling and implications, President Trump is now underwater on his immigration approval –with more Americans disapproving than approving.
But when you dig deeper, the numbers get even worse for the president on what was supposedly one of his strongest issues. Trump’s mass deportation agenda becomes wildly unpopular when details are included about who is being targeted and the scope of Trump’s enforcement. And when offered the choice in polling, a strong majority of the American public prefers a balanced approach to immigration, pairing border security, targeted enforcement, and a path to legal status, instead of Trump’s vision.
Americans want things fixed, not destroyed – that includes the broken immigration system that has been desperate for an overhaul for decades. And now there’s a growing conversation oriented around the fact that Trump’s overreach and ugliness are moving us in the wrong direction on immigration, away from the real solutions America needs.
And the solutions in my view, look a lot like Senator Ruben Gallego’s recent reform framework, centered on maintaining order at our southern border, reforming the asylum system, addressing root causes of migration, creating a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and long-term undocumented residents, and expanding legal immigration pathways to strengthen our economy and level the playing field for American workers. While details do matter, I appreciate his leaning in and charting a direction for real solutions grounded in America’s needs and values.
Senator Gallego is not alone in refocusing attention on solutions as the backlash to Trump’s mass deportation dragnet grows. Three Republican House Members recently joined with three Democratic colleagues to reintroduce the “Farm Workforce Modernization Act,” which would stabilize the industry for both farms and farmworkers and include both reforms to the H-2A program and a program for certain agricultural workers to earn legal status. The George W. Bush Center released a policy blueprint making the case that enforcement alone won’t fix our broken immigration system and emphasizing immigration as an essential tool to ensure America’s competitiveness and to sustain our future labor force. And the bipartisan FWD.us organization is among the growing number of policy organizations laying out a new vision for immigration reform, including for border security and regional migration.
Important policy details aside, there’s a key question that should anchor much of our conversation about immigration in America. Is it better for our nation to follow the Trump vision that seeks to seal our borders, criminalize immigrants, slash legal immigration, and seek to deport as many immigrants as possible, including deeply rooted immigrants? Or is it better to seek a different vision, which involves a secure and orderly border, where we know who’s arriving and why; a resourced, fair and efficient asylum system; legal immigration channels to sustain our economy; targeted enforcement against public safety threats; and a path to legal status for long-residing undocumented immigrants?
What’s at stake is not just a policy question. It’s the real lives of those being targeted by Trump’s overreach: the coffee growers and citrus workers; the cleaners and caregivers; the cancer researchers and construction crews; and the U.S. spouses and children of undocumented immigrants. Wouldn’t new legal pathways for these long-residing immigrants and dedicated workers – who have helped build and strengthen entire industries across the country – better advance our nation’s economic interests, security, and values rather than putting them into the detention and deportation pipeline?
Isn’t there a better way than what we are all witnessing? I say yes, and so do the vast majority of my fellow Americans. In the face of Trump’s self-defeating and un-American attacks on our communities, let’s chart a new direction for real immigration solutions grounded in our values and interests.”