It is often said that immigration law is the second most complex legislation after the tax code. But the misery it inflicts on people is second to none.
This fact is becoming increasingly clear to some. Last week, Elon Musk (an immigrant himself) shared on X the brief testimony of an American citizen whose husband is struggling through the legal immigration process. Musk said that “legal immigration to America is ridiculously slow & difficult, even for super talented people. Needs to be fixed.” Musk is right. The legal immigration process is more than “slow and difficult,” it’s Kafkaesque, as I’ve explained in this columnbefore. It is past time to take this problem seriously and challenge our immigration system.
Ellis Island closed long ago, literally and figuratively. America no longer welcomes with open arms those yearning to breathe free. Contrary to what most Americans think, legal immigration is almost impossible for most people. Very few foreigners are even eligible to try. For those who even get to attempt immigration, the process is excruciating, expensive, and extremely demoralizing. I should know—I went through it myself and, even though I was a perfect candidate on paper to reside in this great land, I had to endure a litany of brutal obstacles to be able to call America my home. For more details on my personal journey, you can watch my presentation on Youtube titled “The Immorality of the U.S. Immigration System.”
The American immigration system is more of an anti-immigration system: its effect is to exclude as many people as possible from settling here, regardless of their talent, their love for American values, and of Americans wanting to hire them or otherwise wanting to associate with them. (Those who pose a threat to America are rightly excluded, too.) Current legislation makes it extremely difficult for American employers to hire the foreign talent they need, for immigrants to fulfill their ambitions while here (such is the case for H-1B visa holders, who are some of the “best and the brightest” but see their aspirations routinely quashed by regulations, as I’ve explained before), and even for Americans to live with their foreign family members in America (as is the struggle of the native-born American Musk referenced).
For many legal immigrants, setting foot in America is only the beginning of the immigration steeplechase. Even for people who have followed every rule, paid every fee, and have done everything right, life as an immigrant can be filled with uncertainty. Immigration laws often restrict the type of work immigrants can do, whether they can move to different cities, and often they make it so legal immigrants can’t work legally for months while they switch from one visa to another, making subsistence nearly impossible. Many legal immigrants who have lived here for years and have been working, paying taxes, and raising families are being asked to wait up to 100 years to get their green cards, living in immigration limbo in the meantime. Instead of inviting hard-working, productive people to become Americans, the current system pushes them out.
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So when people tell prospective immigrants to “get in line,” they should know that that line often doesn’t exist, and when it does it often leads to nowhere or is plagued by arbitrary obstacles that inflict pain and suffering on immigrants and the native-born Americans who want them here.
There are multiple ways in which Congress could begin to rectify the injustices of the immigration system, as many experts have proposed. But part of what needs to change is our immigration debate, which is plagued by myths and scare tactics about the alleged perils of immigration and little time is devoted to looking at the facts of our immigration system and what its effects are. Both the system and the debate need to radically improve.
I welcome Musk’s public comments about our labyrinthic immigration system, an issue I and some others have been discussing for a while. And I encourage him to seek more information about it and push for meaningful reforms now that he has the ear of the future president. It’s past time for Americans to learn about the nightmarish system they’re funding and build the immigration system that America deserves.
Agustina Vergara Cid is a Young Voices contributor. You can follow her on X at @agustinavcid.