> Entering the United States without being inspected and admitted, i.e., illegal entry, is a misdemeanor or can be a felony, depending on the circumstances
If the immigration laws were enforced 100% accurately today, the US economy would falter. Undocumented workers do work in farm, janitorial, restaurant, construction, and other sectors that is irreplaceable through any other reasonable means.
The immigration crisis of today is the result of a failure of legislative body to legislate (10% approval ratings are bad). Including other external factors such as corrupt governments/drug cartels and internal factors such as many companies happy to look the other way when people don't have legal work status.
If you watch videos on immigration seeing ICE, courts, and migrants interacting, the migrants get asylum and then encouraged to find work. It's all tongue-in-cheek. If anything the system could be intentional because without legislation, the executive branch can unilaterally set thresholds and targets for migration in step with economic goals. Even Trump didn't tighten the migration laws drastically until covid hit bringing an economic slowdown (no workers needed during recessions).
The social issues focused on in the media are minor compared to the economic benefits.
> Undocumented workers do work in farm, janitorial, restaurant, construction, and other sectors that is irreplaceable through any other reasonable means.
There is a fairly obvious reasonable means: Issue them work visas. But there is no lobby to do that because the people doing it prefer the status quo where they're cheating on their taxes and getting out of regulatory requirements companies who hire US citizens have to follow.
Enforcing the law is the best way to get the law to change.
There are huge lobbies supporting seasonal and temporary worker visas.
For one area you mention – farming – there is a specific H-2A seasonal worker visa, and industrial agriculture is a huge lobby.
Hotels, resorts, and other venues use the H-2B non-agricultural temporary worker visas. For example, Trump's properties (in)famously use them to staff up during busy seasons. These companies are also substantial lobbies in favor of guest worker visas.
But these are all temporary work visas, not visas allowing for permanent work and residence in the United States. So they would not cover permanent economic migrants who end up in the restaurant sector or in janitorial work.
> There are huge lobbies supporting seasonal and temporary worker visas.
Precisely. There are huge lobbies for the thing we already have and not for solving the problem that remains:
> But these are all temporary work visas, not visas allowing for permanent work and residence in the United States. So they would not cover permanent economic migrants who end up in the restaurant sector or in janitorial work.
People want cheap domestic labor but refuse to admit to it in writing. They want a "minimum wage" but not the higher prices that implies for common services that require unskilled labor. They want home values and their own corrupt industry's margins to stay high and blame Walmart for not paying a "living wage" under those conditions, while patronizing Walmart because they have lower prices.
You can't have two incompatible things at once and when you demand that, what you get is deception and rules that only exist on paper.
If the US economy would falter from that I think it deserves it. It’s immoral to have an economy that’s exploiting below-minimum wage workers who can’t complain or will get deported and it suppresses the wages of citizens who want to work in those fields.
There should be full enforcement of both illegal immigration and against the hiring of illegal immigrants.
Why is it better to punish everyone for past mistakes than it is to make the system better by allowing more workers to immigrate legally, and enforcing labor laws?
> Undocumented workers do work in farm, janitorial, restaurant, construction, and other sectors that is irreplaceable through any other reasonable means.
It's all replaceable, but only by improving wages and working conditions. I find it a bit unappealing to celebrate the economic benefits we gain by paying people so little to work in such terrible conditions.
That said, I agree it's mostly political theater. Both Democrats and Republicans look the other way when the people who employ migrant workers violate labor laws. If Rs were serious about controlling immigration, or Ds were serious about protecting workers, they would prosecute the employers.
Do you have this backwards? Any animal can be "undocumented", and there are in fact strict requirements for cattle documentation if they're to be used as food. But only humans can be criminals.
More relevant is perhaps the issue of accuracy - if a US citizen loses their ID, they are "undocumented". Meanwhile an illegal immigrant, even if they have all their papers and the authorities know who they are, i.e. they are fully "documented", is still not permitted to stay in the country.
