John Manley is tired of people telling immigrants to “be in line” and “do it the right way.”
The immigration lawyer in Los Angeles for almost 30 years said what most people don’t understand is that it is nearly impossible for people in certain countries like Mexico to legally come to the US.
“People are dying in line,” he said. In some cases, “It’s literally 150 years of waiting.”
Manly, one of his clients, originally a US citizen from Mexico, petitioned two brothers to become legal residents, and after waiting more than 15 years he buried them rather than giving them good news.
“They are doing their best. They are waiting in line,” he said. “But if you have a system that is essentially designed to fail from the start, it’s difficult to believe it.”
The immigration law hasn’t seen wholesale reforms in nearly 40 years, but as the Trump administration cracks down on undocumented immigrants, politicians are looking at the window of opportunity. Economists, immigration lawyers and academics say that without another relief valve, it is not just immigrants who will suffer, but people from a wide range of the economy.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif) is scheduled to introduce law Monday that could potentially provide a path to citizenship for 11 million immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least seven years. Republican leaders and the Senate said that while the law that passed away last year is unlikely to pass, Padilla felt a “mood shift” across Congress and the nation and wanted to reintroduce the bill.
He’s not the only one. Earlier this month, House Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FLA.) and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) abandoned their law, the Dignity Act.
For decades, both Republicans and Democrats have tried without reforming what is considered an outdated system that approved 3% of the 34.7 million pending green card applications last fiscal year, according to David Bier, a researcher at the Cato Institute.
“I think now is the time given the extreme overreach of the Trump administration,” Padilla said. “You talk to your colleagues on both sides of the aisle about farm workers, farm workers. They say farm workers deserve better, but political will hasn’t been there for years.”
But the image of Trump’s enforcement behaviour against non-criminals – mothers lamenting from the arrests of workers and vendors outside Home Depot has permeated public consciousness and elicited criticism across political boundaries.
A Gallup poll released this month showed record support for immigrants. When asked whether immigration is generally good or bad for the country, 79% of US adults called it good. And a record 17% saw it as a bad thing.
Just a year ago, Americans were worried about their pocketbooks, increasingly worried about the waves of immigration at the tropical border, and voted for President Trump last fall.
In 2024, Gallup polls found 64% viewed it as a good thing, while 32% viewed it as a bad thing.
When asked about the Dignity Act this month, White House spokesperson Caroline Leavitt said that the president has not read the law, but “he made it very clear, he wouldn’t support pardons for illegal foreigners.”
Under both Democrat and Republican administrations, the US seemed the opposite as immigrants filled the jobs they chose in the fields behind restaurants, cared for their children, and built homes.
However, with the Trump administration’s strengthened enforcement, net immigration is likely to be negative in 2025, with monthly employment growth and GDP likely falling by the end of this year, according to a paper from the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Tara Watson, an economist at the Brookings facility, one of the authors of the paper, said this decline in migration had not happened since it was tracked in 1960. A typical year brings about 1.2 million people, of which around 600,000 people legally appear on green cards from overseas, with others illegally seeking asylum or alternative status.
The paper predicts that the US could lose as many as 525,000 people and reduce domestic production growth (GDP) by 0.3-0.4%.
Watson called the projection of the negative transition “shocking.”
“The growth of our workforce is all due to immigration,” she said. “Our workforce, born in the US, is actually at a shrinking stage.”
If this trend continues, she said, could undermine the appeal of the United States to academics, scientists, technical workers and doctoral students.
“We’ve built an entire global talent infrastructure,” she said. “If we lose this, this could have a really, really damaging effect on our economy. I think it will slow growth in the short term.”
Along with the United States Federation of Immigration Reform, immigration enforcement hardliners like Ira Melmann refute that an economy built on a cheap immigrant workforce degrades the conditions of American workers.
“If you provide poor wages and working conditions and Americans don’t show up and apply for those jobs, then you can make self-fulfilling prophecies if you say, ‘Well, you’re, I’m sure only immigrants will take them,’ you can make self-fulfilling prophecies. ” he said.
His group defended “met-based transitions” and stated that “chain transitions” or family-based migrations should be eliminated immediately.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the United States made immigration with relatives a priority here. The system dates back to 1920 and replaced the racially colored allocation of national origins that supported European immigration.
Each year, around one million people get the citizenship prelude – citizenship prelude through four basic ways: family relations, work, lottery systems, or asylum seekers. The most common method is through family ties, and many of the approved people already live in the US
The current system imposes CAP on the number of approved green cards for families – excluding immediate relatives – at 226,000 per year. There are also exceptions, but the employment-based green cards are limited to 140,000 per year.
Family relationships, like Manly clients used, are lifelong waits and can take decades for many. If you applied for a Mexican brother 24 years ago, your case is just approaching. However, as the docket grew, these wait times became longer. In India, the 19-year-old case is currently approved, and it took about 17 years in almost every other country.
Lower fertility and aging demographics mean that the workforce cannot keep up with demand. Beer points out that the US ranks in the bottom third of wealthy countries for per capita immigration.
This results in a pent-up demand that entice workers to come illegally.
“We have created a system between the economy and the legal system where workers’ invitations have been built over the years, but no legal status has been provided,” said Hiroshi Motomura, co-director of UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “And what happens, their lives, the lives of workers will be very unstable.”
Carl Shusterman, an immigration lawyer who has been practicing since the 1970s, says he watches it every day with Westside and his practice.
“Go to the restaurant and see who cooks the food, who is building a flashy, flashy neighborhood, mowing the lawns, caring for kids, and choosing almost every industry.
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