How Not to Fix Broken Immigration

Youyou Zhou writes in the Wash. Post:

Opinion How the broken immigration system is pushing skilled workers to enter illegally

Here’s a measure of how broken American immigration policies are: The numbers of undocumented migrants from India and China have spiked in recent years. Last year alone, more than 65,000 people from both countries combined crossed the southern border into the United States, a nearly sevenfold jump from the total in 2019.

These two countries already provide the majority of legal skilled foreign workers in the United States, and yet — perhaps because of this — skilled foreign workers may have a career incentive to enter the country illegally.

The op-ed then explains that Congress has passed limits on foreign workers displacing Americans, so the foreigners come in illegally and circumvent the limits. They make phony asylum claims, and then get work permits while their claims are pending, as they can stay for many years on a pending phony claim.

This tale of two foreign workers is a reminder that our legal immigration system is broken. If the government really wanted to curtail illegal crossings, creating more legal pathways for migrants to work here should be the priority.

No, this is crazy. She is essentially saying that we should respond to an illegal foreign invasion by legalizing the invaders. We should stop letting them in on phony asylum claims.