So why not selectively import the people (workers, professions) the country needs?
There are competent engineers "waiting in line" for years, while illegals are allowed to stay... it's basically rewarding the criminals and punishing the honest ones.
You’re talking to much sense. Fact is, a portion of the people advocating for not enforcing immigration laws profit from the off-the-books labor. The greater portion are useful idealists. The difference between the two is that the latter imagine a world that concurrently has an endless supply of low skill laborers and a meaningfully high minimum wage law that would be respected. Perhaps there’s another fraction that believe in growing minimum wage for citizens and (as today) no such law for black market labor pools of non-citizens, but I like to think that level of maliciousness is not as common as hapless idealism.
We can do both. We don't have to choose between welcoming the many highly skilled professionals who want to work here, and welcoming the asylum seekers and economic refugees who are fleeing violence or poverty and eager to build a better future here. We can do both, and we would benefit from both.
There are competent engineers "waiting in line" for years, while illegals are allowed to stay... it's basically rewarding the criminals and punishing the honest ones.