Focusing on the Solutions: Key Principles of Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Nearly everyone agrees that our immigration system is badly broken and in urgent need of reform. Under the existing system people are dying at the border, immigrants are living and working in abject conditions, families trying to reunite legally are separated for many years, employers are unable to hire the workers that they need, U.S. workers suffer from the unlevel playing field shared with exploited immigrant workers, and law‐abiding U.S. employers are in unfair competition with unscrupulous employers who increase profits by hiring cheap and vulnerable labor. Meanwhile, the United States continues to spend billions of dollars on enforcing these broken laws.

This report is a companion piece to the Immigration Policy Center’s previous publication which focuses on the underlying problems within our immigration system. In “Breaking Down the Problems, What’s Wrong with Our Immigration System?” the Immigration Policy Center lays out key structural problems within immigration law, as well as the inadequate, enforcement‐only responses that have given rise to our current immigration crisis. Focusing on the Solutions paper summarizes the key elements that must be included in a successful legislative package.