{"id":80955,"date":"2022-10-12T13:35:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T17:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=80955"},"modified":"2022-10-13T16:00:22","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T20:00:22","slug":"national-rise-in-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/national-rise-in-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"The National Rise in Immigration: Causes and Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why is there a national rise in immigration in the United States? What are the solutions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although immigration has documented economic benefits, there\u2019s also evidence that immigration causes some job disruptions and wage depression, as opponents of immigration fear. Work restrictions and deportation are two of the solutions to immigration established by the U.S. government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read on for an overview of the national rise in immigration, including the proposed solutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

An Overloaded Immigration System<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The national rise in immigration has severely strained the U.S. legal system. As of June 2022, there are 1.8 million pending cases in U.S. immigration court, an all-time high<\/a>. This legal overload has had an unintended consequence: Immigrants are living long-term in the United States without permission to work to support themselves.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowadays, most undocumented migrants are asylum seekers<\/a>: people who travel to the U.S. to flee persecution or danger in their home countries. Instead of passing through the formal immigration system, the law allows asylum seekers to live safely in the U.S. until their case is resolved in court. In theory, this enables the U.S. to allow those who are truly in danger to stay and work safely in the country and send those who aren\u2019t in danger back to their home countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, due to the immigration court backlog, asylum seekers must wait five to seven years<\/em><\/a> <\/em>before they receive a judgment on whether they can stay. More importantly, this backlog prohibits asylum seekers from obtaining a job in the U.S.<\/strong> for at least 150 days, at which point they can apply for a license to work\u2014another overloaded bureaucratic process that takes over four months to resolve<\/a>. Some state governments and nonprofit organizations have stepped in to care for these migrants, but without the permission to support themselves, the migrants\u2019 futures are insecure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Is There a Rise in Immigration?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In May of 2022, U.S. border officials took 239,416 migrants into custody\u2014the highest monthly total of attempted border crossings ever recorded<\/a>. Since Biden took office, more than a million undocumented immigrants<\/a> have taken up residence in the U.S. (This is a higher rate of undocumented immigration than during the Trump administration, but not significantly higher<\/a>.) Experts attribute this national rise in immigration not only to the Biden administration\u2019s changes to immigration policy, but also to the United State\u2019s recovery<\/a> from the Covid-19 pandemic and its accompanying economic downturn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rationale Behind Work Restrictions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The restriction preventing asylum seekers in the U.S. from working is an extension of a broader skepticism toward the national rise in immigration. A large part of Donald Trump\u2019s presidential platform, for example, relied on the assumption that as a whole, immigration benefits<\/a> immigrants at the expense of native-born citizens.<\/strong> The Trump administration instituted policies reflecting that attitude\u2014in August of 2020, they increased the time immigrants must wait to apply for permission to work from 150 days to 365 days<\/a> (it has since been reset to 150 days<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there\u2019s evidence showing that immigrants can\u2014and do\u2014significantly benefit the overall economy and therefore, native-born citizens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n