Among the many messages voters sent in the 2024 presidential election, arguably the most definitive and urgent was a conviction that America’s immigration system is broken. They had good cause for this view. With an unprecedented number of border crossings, an asylum-processing backlog approaching 1.5 million cases, and a near-universal belief that we’d lost control of the Southern border, public confidence in our immigration system sank to an all-time low.

Today’s immigration system benefits almost no one: not employers struggling with labor shortages; not immigrants and their families trapped in a bureaucratic maze; not voters, who deserve and demand secure borders, functional governance, and policies that reflect electoral mandates; and not U.S. national interests, from our domestic economy and national political temper, to our global strategic posture in a time of rising great-power rivalry.¹

It hasn’t helped that our immigration debate has been hijacked by the political extremes and framed as an all-or-nothing binary between wide open or hermetically sealed borders, a false choice more useful for partisan attacks than practical policy solutions.² Our fear-driven immigration politics has disserved the public, distracting us from the harder but immensely more important work of designing an immigration system that upholds the rule of law, reflects our values,³ and advances our national interests. It has left us dangerously unprepared for the challenges of the future.

Possibly the biggest sin of our polarized debate is that it obscures America’s chief asset in solving its immigration problems and seizing its global comparative advantage: For all the complexities, imperfections, and flaws of our immigration system, the United States integrates newcomers better than any other country in the world, turning their potential into a national strategic advantage over other high-income countries by providing fresh skill, talent, and energy for our economy and culture;⁴ doing so at our adversaries’ expense;⁵ benefiting from immigrants’ insights into their home nations’ cultures, economies, and politics; and communicating our values to the rest of the world. Yet, as successful as the U.S. has been, our peers have narrowed the gap in recent decades, implementing sophisticated admissions systems that recruit many of the world’s best and brightest who otherwise might have come here.⁶

Throughout our history, Americans have favored practical solutions that deliver results. This paper offers an original blueprint for reform that is fundamentally different from other approaches: It’s designed to actually work — not by insisting on ideological, and thus unworkable, philosophical fantasies from the right or the left, but by insisting on pragmatic, broadly supported solutions. It is an approach to immigration reform that would restore control, reassert the rule of law, and reconceive immigration not as a liability, but as a strategic asset. It does so within the framework of Niskanen’s signature approach to public policy: the application of evidence-based solutions grounded in realities, driven by national capacities managed by competent governance, and judged by measurable results. Capacity and governance will be key in the context of H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that became law in July 2025, the magnitude of which stands to reshape every aspect of migration management and, thus, much of American society.

Migration is inevitable. The critical question is how effectively we harness it. America does not have to choose between security and compassion, or between sovereignty and openness. We can achieve both through an immigration system that is transparent, enforceable, and firmly aligned with our national values and national interests. The first step is to engage in serious debate rather than waste time, energy, and unity denying realities and scoring political points rather than solving problems, strengthening our economy, and driving national renewal.

The blueprint is built on six pillars representing key features of an effective immigration system, including the principles that inform them and the policies to achieve them:

1. Prioritizing enforcement and security. Immigration enforcement must be strategic, targeted, and cost-effective. It should prioritize genuine threats to public safety. It should distinguish a productive, law-abiding member of the community from a recidivist criminal. Doing so would better serve public safety and national security, reaffirm our commitments to civil liberties and due process, and help restore public faith in government competence.
   
2. Aligning admissions with national interest. A functioning immigration system should advance the national interest by aligning admissions with U.S. economic, security, and global interests. It would expand legal admissions pathways for skilled workers, helping to address critical labor shortages, while protecting American workers through an effective employment verification process.
   
3. Rebuilding institutional capacity and credibility. An effective immigration policy depends on strong institutional capacities at every level of government, from managing border surges skillfully and enforcing the law more effectively, to processing immigration claims more efficiently and fairly, and supporting immigrants’ integration into American society more productively.
   
4. Wielding humanitarian protection as strategic power. Robust humanitarian protections for those fleeing war, persecution, and tyranny serve U.S. national interests, strengthening our society by preventing a permanent underclass; enhancing our global standing; and legitimizing our critiques of our adversaries.
   
5. Integrating immigrants as a civic imperative. Our immigration system should expect and empower immigrants to assimilate into American society by learning English, American history, and core constitutional principles; promote timely naturalization and encourage participation in public institutions and public service; and safeguard birthright citizenship, equal access to public education, and other foundational principles that reflect and nurture the American promise of opportunity.
   
6. Leveraging immigration to fortify American power abroad. Our immigration policy must reinforce our global alliances, attract top talent from strategic competitors, and offer refuge to dissidents fleeing repressive regimes. This approach will not only elevate our standing in the world but also provide valuable insights into our rivals’ economies, cultures, and politics.
   

Below, we discuss the application of the pillars to the problems they address and their underlying principles.

The problem

Illegal and disordered immigration affects virtually every American community, undermining public safety, straining local resources, and diminishing the credibility of our legal immigration system and public confidence in government competence. The factors that have driven millions of individuals and families from throughout Mexico and Central and South America to our Southern border in recent years — declining economic opportunity, rising political instability, widespread violence, and increasingly, climate change — are likely to continue to strain America’s capacity and, in many cases, Americans’ goodwill.

For decades, our border-enforcement practices have been inconsistent, unresponsive to the circumstances, and ineffective. Families fleeing violence and hardship face dangerous journeys, while others claim asylum not because they qualify but because it is their only viable entry point, further encumbering an already overburdened vetting process for legitimate asylum seekers. Meanwhile, migrants apprehended inside the U.S. for illegal entry have frequently been released without giving reliable assurances that they will show up for court appearances or receiving reliable assistance in the interim. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have often failed to follow through on warrants and other detainers issued to local law enforcement. Yet, they are increasingly present in communities where their efforts are misaligned with the desires of much of the American public. With local enforcement resources stretched thin, the system often perversely prioritizes minor immigration violations over serious threats, planting the seeds for chaos and other unintended consequences. In the absence of clear federal guidance, funding, or strategy, local governments have borne the brunt of unmanaged resettlement, and insufficient monitoring of visa compliance allows many individuals to overstay their permitted terms without consequence.

The July 2025 enactment of H.R.1 — the “One Big Beautiful Bill”— has changed much of this landscape, allocating $170.7 billion for immigration and border enforcement activities to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) units and to the Department of Defense (DOD) for border-related activities.⁷ For perspective, that amount is almost five times DHS’s entire budget for 2004, its first year in operation.⁸ Resources are essential, and that’s a substantial amount, but how those resources are spent is also critically important.

Principles

Immigration enforcement must be strategic, targeted, and cost-effective, prioritizing recent immigration violations and genuine threats to public safety. Rather than relying on blunt, undifferentiated practices, enforcement should deploy advanced technologies and intelligence-based tactics that distinguish between productive, law-abiding members of the community and criminals. Doing so would make the best use of enforcement resources; better serve public safety and national security; reaffirm our commitment to civil liberties and due process; and help restore public faith in government fairness and effectiveness. This includes addressing the economic pull factors that drive unauthorized immigration while ensuring that states have a meaningful voice in shaping enforcement strategies tailored to local realities. 

Policies

1. Prioritize and enforce the deportation of violent criminals, repeat offenders, and those whose violations are more recent. Immigration enforcement resources are best spent pursuing and prosecuting immigrants charged with serious, violent crimes, repeat offenders, and those who have recently committed an immigration violation. Deporting recent violators will discourage follow-on migration and opportunistic actors who profit from lax enforcement. Moreover, recent visa overstayers and border crossers are easier to remove than those who have already established a presence in this country. Prioritizing dangerous criminals ensures that federal immigration enforcement resources are directed toward individuals who pose national security and public safety hazards in our communities, as does employing alternatives to detention for those who do not. We should not detain children for enforcement purposes.
   
2. Expand and externalize employment verification. The current employment verification system, E-Verify, has not lived up to its promise. Limited adoption, reliability issues, and uneven enforcement have left both legitimate employers and authorized workers exposed to harm while doing little to deter unauthorized employment.⁹ Federal–state data sharing should be expanded to enable real-time verification using multiple identifiers, thereby increasing accuracy and reducing the risk of false matches. Databases must be updated to reflect current employment authorization records, making them more resistant to fraud and better able to keep pace with dynamic labor needs. Employers who repeatedly fail to comply must face meaningful penalties, while businesses that make a good-faith effort should be supported through education and streamlined processes.
   
3. Fund federal immigration enforcement adequately so that local law enforcement can focus on state priorities. Cooperation between federal immigration and local law enforcement is crucial to coordinate the detention of convicted felons upon their release. However, immigration enforcement should remain a federal responsibility to preserve cooperative relationships between local authorities and communities and their immigrant populations; respect state and local budget constraints; and limit the liability of federal agencies’ local partners. All immigration enforcement officials and partners should uphold ICE’s Sensitive Locations guidance¹⁰ and refrain from enforcement-related activities in hospitals, churches, and schools, except in cases involving the most serious offenders.
   
4. Establish an entry-exit system. Strengthening our lax entry-exit system, including exit checks, would discourage illegal crossings, help prevent unauthorized employment, ensure that visa holders leave the U.S. when required, help monitor expired work permits, and enforce compliance with these regulations. Setting up exit migration controls at ports of entry, identifying and locating overstayers, and enforcing strict controls are critical components of entry-exit management.

The problem

America’s immigration system should work for everyone: American workers, businesses, families, and the immigrants whom we admit. It should never tip the scales in favor of foreign workers at the expense of U.S. citizens, nor be captured by narrow interests, outdated quotas, or bureaucratic inertia. The ultimate test of immigration policy is whether it serves the national interest and whether reasonable people can reasonably look at the system and say, “This works for our country.”

Unfortunately, our current system fails that test on numerous levels. It fails to meet workforce demands, excludes entire industries from access to necessary visas, imposes unreasonably long wait times, drives away U.S.-trained talent, and unwittingly incentivizes unauthorized entry. Against this backdrop, it’s not surprising that it fails to reliably prevent fraud or abuse. As legal pathways have grown more rigid and outdated, both employers and migrants are pushed into irregular channels, fueling disorder, straining resources, and eroding public confidence.

A core consequence of these failures is the growth of a long-term unauthorized population, an outcome that is neither sustainable nor consistent with the rule of law. An enduring shadow population creates legal ambiguity, depresses wages in specific sectors, provokes political backlash, and erodes the integrity of immigration enforcement. Millions of people living and working in the U.S. remain in limbo, without a clear path to legal status, yet deeply embedded in their communities and the economy. Without a functioning legal system that accommodates labor needs and enforces the law fairly, the unauthorized population will continue to grow, and with it, public frustration will persist.

Legal immigration should better align with labor-market realities and the demographics of an aging society. States and localities should have a greater voice in shaping visa allocations based on regional needs, and visa caps should be flexible in response to economic conditions, expanding during periods of labor shortages and contracting in downturns. Immigration policy should prioritize those most likely to succeed and contribute: U.S.-educated graduates, entrepreneurs, skilled tradespeople, and individuals with essential technical or linguistic skills.

At the same time, we need to strike a balance between short-term and long-term labor needs. Temporary worker programs should be transparent and well-structured, with clear expectations and robust protections for workers. But we also need a pathway for long-term, contributing workers to transition into permanent status, especially those who demonstrate commitment to the U.S. economy and community life. A two-track model — one for rotational labor and another for permanent settlement — would enhance fairness, reduce exploitation, and bolster public trust.

Our employment visa programs are in urgent need of reform. The current lottery system does little to prioritize the best candidates or reward merit, and its rigidity disadvantages U.S. employers competing for top global talent. A shift toward a merit-based system that utilizes predictive analytics, grounded in skills, education, experience, dynamism, innovation, and job offers, would better serve our national interests and help the U.S. remain an innovation hub.

Family unity also matters. Our immigration system should treat nuclear families, spouses, and minor children as a single unit, facilitating integration and making the U.S. more attractive to highly skilled workers. But the system must also recognize limits. Extended family migration cannot displace other priorities, and we should enact sensible reforms —such as protecting children who age out and streamlining spousal reunification —without delay.

Principles

A functioning immigration system should advance the national interest by aligning admissions with U.S. economic, security, and humanitarian goals as well as its financial and social capacities. This includes expanding legal pathways for skilled workers, addressing labor shortages across sectors, and grappling with people’s universal desire to improve their families’ conditions and prospects through migration. At the same time, the system must ensure a fair and transparent labor market through a modern employment verification process, paired with broader legal work opportunities and stricter penalties for violations. A realistic immigration system must also provide earned legalization for long-settled individuals under clear conditions, reflecting the values of dignity, family unity, and shared prosperity that define America.

Policies

1. Exempt high-earning EB-2 and EB-3 applicants from labor certification. We should streamline the green card process for top-tier talent by waiving labor certification requirements for EB-2 and EB-3 green card applicants whose salaries are above the 85th and 90th percentiles, respectively, for their occupation, age, and geographic location. This would also reduce processing burdens for both employers and the Department of Labor.
   
2. Implement dynamic labor-market immigration. Visa caps should be dynamic, fluctuating in response to labor market conditions: expanding during periods of economic growth and contracting during economic downturns. Aligning visa allocations with real-time employer demand can ensure the immigration system responds to actual workforce needs rather than arbitrary quotas.
   
3. Implement merit-based pilots. Leveraging predictive analytics can help us look beyond traditional indicators such as education, age, and salary to identify broader factors that shape success across diverse sectors of society, including communication skills, digital literacy, creativity, and problem-solving.
   
4. Expand the Visa for Extraordinary Ability (O Visa). Broadening eligibility and streamlining processing for the O visa would attract top-tier global talent and create a dedicated visa for immigrant entrepreneurs with novel business ideas and new products, focusing on specific geographical areas.¹¹
   
5. Tailor infrastructure investment via EB-5. Incentivizing EB-5 investor funds on critical infrastructure and public works projects would help generate economic value and community benefits.
   
6. Expand high-impact immigration channels. In the short term, we must increase the number of H-1B visas to meet current workforce demands. In the long term, a better H-1B-like visa would be used for its original intent rather than serve as a holding ground for individuals in line for a green card. We must also remove green card caps for holders of U.S. STEM graduate degrees that benefit the United States.
   
7. Bolster upskilling and reskilling of American workers. We should strategically allocate visa fees to fund state-led workforce development and training initiatives. This should include partnerships between community colleges and industry aimed at building flexible, regionally tailored programs in such sectors as manufacturing, healthcare, cybersecurity, and renewable energy, adjusting priorities over time based on labor market trends.¹²
   
8. Reinvigorate strategic immigration initiatives. To address critical workforce gaps in healthcare and eldercare, the U.S. should better utilize skilled immigrants who are ready and able to contribute. Reallocating unused Conrad 30 waivers to place foreign medical graduates in underserved areas while streamlining credential recognition would help us fill urgent healthcare roles with licensed and foreign-trained professionals already in the U.S.¹³ To meet rising demand for eldercare, the J-1 visa program should be expanded to include in-home elder care, easing pressure on families.¹⁴ By modernizing the Schedule A occupation list, the U.S. can expedite green card access for workers in high-need healthcare and caregiving professions, thereby strengthening our workforce where it matters most.¹⁵
   
9. Fast Track STEM talent. In parallel with strict vetting standards, we must establish faster green card eligibility for foreign students who are earning advanced degrees in strategic fields from American universities. Eliminating the artificial caps and bureaucratic obstacles that deter American-educated talent from staying in the U.S. post-graduation would help us compete with other nations. Each STEM graduate we retain represents an incalculable strategic advantage in technological competition with authoritarian regimes.
   
10. Permit state-based and locally sponsored visa programs. We should allow states to establish visa programs tailored to local labor market needs and economic priorities. We should also enable local governments and private entities to sponsor immigrants directly, fostering regional development and expanding opportunities for community-based integration. This should include programs incentivizing new arrivals to stay in specific states and regions.
    
11. Create pathways to earn legal status. We are long overdue in creating a path to legal status for unauthorized immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years and have no serious criminal record, including those brought to the U.S. as children. Legalization should be contingent on meeting precise requirements, such as paying outstanding taxes or penalties and passing rigorous background checks, to ensure accountability and public confidence.
    
12. Rationalize family-based immigration. Our family-based immigration system is anything but. Right now, it is exceedingly difficult for first-degree relatives of U.S. citizens to come to the United States for family reunification. Not only does this disserve our national interests, it is also a huge missed opportunity to promote assimilation and show the world that we live our principles. As a first step, we should gradually phase out the F3 and F4 visa categories for married adult children and siblings, who currently face wait times exceeding 20 years. Current applicants who have already waited more than a decade should be offered alternative paths to reunification, including the ability to visit or provide care for family members here. Prioritizing nuclear families comprising spouses and minor children ensures timely reunification, which supports integration, family stability, and economic contribution.
    
13. Exclude dependents from green card caps. We can significantly reduce backlogs by revising visa allocation rules to exclude spouses and minor children of principal applicants from annual green card quotas.¹⁶ This would be especially useful in high-demand employment and family-based categories and would not increase categorical caps.

The problem

The U.S. immigration system is burdened by structural dysfunction that erodes its legitimacy and fails to meet the needs of a modern nation. Families, workers, students, and employers are forced to make significant life and business decisions in the face of a system that is unpredictable, inconsistent, and often arbitrarily slow. Bureaucratic backlogs have reached crisis levels, with millions of cases pending at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), immigration courts, and consular offices. Processing delays affect everything from temporary visas and green cards to work permits and family reunification, often leaving individuals in legal limbo for months or even years.

Much of this breakdown is due to outdated infrastructure and antiquated systems. Immigration agencies still rely on paper-based processes, fax machines, and manual data entry, making records difficult to access, prone to errors, and vulnerable to loss and destruction. Technology investments have lagged far behind need, and even well-intentioned reforms are undermined by a lack of digital capacity. These inefficiencies are compounded by duplicative procedures and a bureaucratic maze involving at least three federal departments (DHS, DOS, and DOL), where coordination is slow and implementing procedural updates is challenging.

Under-resourced and overwhelmed, agencies such as USIS and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR)¹⁷ are struggling to keep up. Immigration courts are critically understaffed, with some 600 immigration judges¹⁸ managing over 3 million pending cases, while vulnerable migrants, particularly children, often lack access to legal representation. Inconsistent adjudications across service centers, consulates, and courts further undermine fairness and confidence in the system. Mandatory timelines for processing low-priority, non-revenue-generating petitions can crowd out higher-impact cases, compounding delays and inefficiency.

All of this undermines due process, the fair application of laws, and the functioning of a system the public can trust. It also makes legal immigration harder to access, inadvertently incentivizing irregular migration. If immigration policy is to function effectively, the federal government must modernize its operations by adopting digital systems, streamlining procedures, and reinforcing its foundational commitment to efficiency, fairness, and accountability. Only then can immigration policy meet the economic, social, and security challenges we face.

Principles

Effective immigration reform depends on strong institutional capacity at every level of government. From federal agencies to local partners, our system must be equipped to enforce laws fairly, process cases efficiently, and respond nimbly to emerging challenges. This includes the infrastructure necessary for faster and fairer adjudication of immigration claims, more effective enforcement, responsive humanitarian protection, and robust integration programs. A modern immigration system must be able to manage border surges, support legal migration, and promote public confidence.

Policies

1. Easing the backlog in green card visas. By reissuing unused employment- and family-based green cards¹⁹ from previous years, we can reduce backlogs and accelerate legal immigration without raising annual caps. Employment-based green cards that go unused because of administrative inefficiencies should automatically roll over to the following year, eliminating the need for recapture in the future.
   
2. Modernize PERM and schedule A. By simplifying and updating the PERM labor certification process,²⁰ we can reduce complexity and better reflect current hiring practices. Implementing automatic, data-driven updates to the Schedule A²¹ list of shortage occupations would streamline green card processing for high-demand fields, such as healthcare and STEM.
   
3. Make premium processing and adjudication predictable. Another way to reduce wait times and generate revenue for USIS operations is to expand premium processing to additional application types, including adjustment of status (Form I-485).²² Establishing clear, enforceable service-level standards for adjudications would promote timely, consistent decisions across all case types.
   
4. Enhance digitization and process efficiency. Fully digitizing immigration forms, documents, and agency communications would eliminate paper-based backlogs and improve accuracy. Automating low-risk application workflows, meanwhile, would reduce redundant paperwork and improve case tracking through modernized systems that offer real-time updates for applicants and employers. These steps would also create opportunities to link data with the Social Security Administration, the Census Bureau, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the Department of Justice.
   
5. Invest in infrastructure, staffing, and technology. To meet growing demand, the U.S. needs to invest in additional staff, training, and physical infrastructure across USCIS, EOIR, and consulates. We also need to leverage AI and advanced analytics to enhance fraud detection, improve workflow efficiency, and support data-driven policy decisions. We can fund these investments sustainably by increasing select visa fees.
   
6. Modernize domestic visa validation and consular operations. Allowing visa renewals for eligible nonimmigrants to be processed within the U.S. would ease pressure on overseas consulates. Similarly, we can enhance consular staffing, processing capacity, and decision-making efficiency by implementing updated protocols and integrating technology.
   
7. Enhance fraud detection and enforcement. The U.S. should improve interagency coordination and leverage modern technology to detect, track, and penalize immigration fraud. Ensuring accountability and system integrity builds public trust and protects lawful applicants.

The Problem

Our immigration system has lost the humanitarian element.

Not long ago, the United States basked in and benefited from being the world’s humanitarian safe harbor — the “New Colossus” of the Emma Lazarus poem inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.²³ For generations, the image we projected to the rest of the world was not of America as just another “brazen giant,” but as “the Mother of Exiles” from whose “beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome.” That bit of soft power produced hard-won gains — for our economy, in our conflicts with authoritarian adversaries, in the vitality of American culture, and in the richness of our communities. They have all been critical to our stability and our rise to power and global leadership. That is no longer the case. 

America’s commitment to protecting those fleeing persecution is both a moral imperative and a strategic tool of foreign policy.²⁴ However, today’s humanitarian channels, particularly asylum, are often overwhelmed and lack operational capacity.²⁵ The current system is too slow, too opaque, and too vulnerable to abuse. A backlog-driven process invites economic migrants to use asylum as a back door to work authorization rather than a timely offer of protection to those who genuinely need it.²⁶ This undermines both the credibility and effectiveness of our humanitarian commitments, creating confusion at the border and eroding support for refugee resettlement more broadly.

Similarly, fundamental aspects of our refugee system have become burdensome, politicized, antiquated, and challenging to measure. These include how we determine who is a refugee; how they apply for protection; how many refugees we can resettle; where those refugees come from and where they go once here; who leads their resettlement; and what makes for successful integration. What should be a straightforward humanitarian commitment is instead hindered by fragmented bureaucracies, inconsistent funding streams, and shifting political winds, making long-term planning nearly impossible. Refugee admissions are treated less like a matter of policy and more like a political football — numbers swing dramatically depending on the administration in power, creating instability for resettlement agencies, communities, and refugees themselves. 

At the same time, outdated procedures fail to account for today’s displacement crises, in which protracted conflicts around the world and secondary movements complicate the process of determining who qualifies and how quickly they can be processed. The lack of reliable data on integration outcomes leaves policymakers guessing rather than governing, perpetuating a system that rewards optics over evidence. This is a costly approach for refugees who are denied timely protection, and for American communities that lose out on the economic, civic, and cultural contributions that a more functional and predictable resettlement system could deliver.

To restore order and purpose to the process, we must connect immigration policy to America’s long-term interests in growing our economy, filling critical labor gaps, promoting family stability, and upholding legitimate humanitarian obligations. It requires a system built on responsiveness, performance, and accountability.

Principles

The United States should maintain — or restore — robust humanitarian protections. Offering refuge to those fleeing war, persecution, and tyranny is not only a moral obligation consistent with America’s founding, but also a strategic asset that strengthens our society, enhances our global standing, and prevents the creation of permanent underclasses cut off from opportunity and isolated from civic life.²⁷

Policies

1. Modernize humanitarian processing. To restore order and credibility to the U.S. immigration system, we must modernize how we manage protection claims. An essential step is to build out remote processing capabilities by establishing regional hubs and offshore case management centers.²⁸ These hubs would alleviate pressure at the Southern border while maintaining high security standards by using advanced vetting tools, such as biometric screening, secure digital applications, and remote interviews. This approach would reduce bottlenecks, increase transparency, and enhance system efficiency.
   
   At the same time, we need to integrate and harmonize the asylum and refugee systems, which currently leave it to the person seeking protection to determine which statutory and administrative processes and procedures are most appropriate for their circumstances. By aligning these two processes under a coherent legal and operational framework, we can better uphold U.S. and international obligations and close loopholes that fuel irregular migration. Expanding regional resettlement pathways, especially in the Western Hemisphere, would enable individuals to apply for protection closer to home, thereby reducing the need for perilous journeys, improving border security, and creating a more orderly and humane system that better serves U.S. interests.
   
2. Share hemispheric responsibilities. Strengthening our partnerships through bilateral treaties throughout North and South America would help prevent transnational criminal organizations and adversarial countries from exploiting irregular migration routes. It would also allow us to establish stable resettlement options for prospective refugees. Rather than using third-country repatriations as a deterrent, the U.S. should negotiate with countries to train prospective migrants in the skills the region needs, remotely process humanitarian migrants, and resettle them in countries throughout the hemisphere that have the capacity to accept them. The U.S. should use in-country detention only as an option of last resort for individuals whose home countries refuse their return and only after diplomatic sanctions fail.
    
3. Limit humanitarian processing at the Southern border. For efficiency, security, and administrative and procedural order, the U.S. should conduct nearly all humanitarian processing remotely rather than at the border. We should consider only the Convention Against Torture²⁹ and preprocessed asylum applications from Mexicans in person at a port of entry, with few preestablished exceptions. All in-person applicants should be subject to the most effective detainment option available, aiming for “fair, fast, and final” processing.
   
4. Simplify humanitarian migration in the Western Hemisphere. With few exceptions, we should remotely process humanitarian migrants in the Western Hemisphere who intend to seek safety and protection in the U.S. We should base our protection for all humanitarian migrants in our hemisphere on consistent, well-defined criteria that can be adapted to the unique needs closest to U.S territory. We should establish widespread remote screening and processing of humanitarian protection applicants using advanced screening technologies to ensure efficiency and security. Additionally, the system should accommodate those already in the U.S. on temporary visas who experience legitimate threats due to changed circumstances in their home countries, such as diplomats or students facing persecution.³⁰
   
5. Employ data-driven and community-based resettlement. The federal government and the states should establish and maintain databases that track metrics indicating where new migrant populations should initially integrate, based on their culture, education, and skills. The data collected during the protection application process should be used for this purpose.
   
6. Promote citizen-led refugee reception and integration. Refugee resettlement and humanitarian programs should be designed to leverage local demand and private support.³¹ States and communities, including smaller towns and religious organizations, should be empowered to opt in to sponsor additional humanitarian migrants since their participation would foster local ownership, economic revitalization, and faster integration. Finally, we should emphasize the resettlement of people from U.S.-allied nations and the reunification of families as ways to honor American values and obligations.
   
7. Protect the Diversity Visa. The Diversity Visa Lottery is an important symbol of America’s openness.³² Maintaining it would help ensure equitable access to immigration for individuals from underrepresented countries. It would send a powerful message that the United States remains, as ever, a land of opportunity.

The problem

Since our founding, immigrants have helped generations of Americans secure the extraordinary liberties and rights we enjoy today. Immigrants have served valiantly in our nation’s military, founded some of our most successful businesses and organizations, and reinvigorated and reaffirmed our place as the greatest nation in the world. These are things to be proud of.

On the left, there is a growing tendency to downplay the importance of shared civic identity, at times framing assimilation as cultural dominance. This perspective, although rooted in a desire for inclusion, can inadvertently foster a sense of separation rather than belonging, thereby undermining the goal of integration that benefits both immigrants and the broader society. On the right, there has been a noticeable shift toward pessimism and cultural defensiveness, with some voices questioning whether our national character can survive demographic change. This view overlooks a long-standing conservative belief in America’s capacity to shape, absorb, and elevate those who come here to build a better life.

These are not merely philosophical errors. They are fallacies that have corroded our national discourse and misled the overwhelming majority of prospective immigrants who want to become part of our national fabric. America’s genius has been our ability to incorporate diverse influences while maintaining our essential character and commitment to openness. But this delicate balance is threatened when we pretend that national identity is meaningless or unchangeable. The truth is self-evident: a nation cannot remain sovereign without shared values, and it cannot remain dynamic without new voices.

We face a stark choice between reclaiming our proud tradition of transformative assimilation or surrendering to a balkanization that would serve neither immigrants nor native-born Americans. It certainly does nothing good for national cohesion. 

Americans deserve policies that promote confidence in the persuasive power of our culture, traditions, and institutions. Immigrants deserve clear expectations and a genuine welcome. And assimilation deserves our support as a powerful lever for upward mobility that our nation can offer to those who join our national family. We reaffirm one of the traits that has gone hand in hand with American aspirations and greatness since our founding: our ability to become and remain one from many.

Principles

Immigrant assimilation is not only a moral obligation but also a strategic investment in the nation’s strength and cohesion. Immigrants should be expected — and thus empowered — to learn English, understand American history, and actively participate in civic life. Our immigration system must promote timely naturalization, language acquisition, and engagement in public institutions, including education and national service. We can achieve these goals by safeguarding core principles, such as birthright citizenship³³ and equal access to public education. They reflect the American promise of opportunity and belonging. The U.S. model of civic nationalism demonstrates that assimilation and pluralism can coexist: Immigrants can maintain their cultural identities while fully embracing American values. Integration succeeds when newcomers are called to contribute and belong, and when we meet our obligation to equip them to do so.

These values periodically come under attack both directly, as in the current effort to redefine birthright citizenship,³⁴ and indirectly by narrowing access to public education.³⁵ Defending these two principles honors our commitment to recognizing and safeguarding American civic culture while honoring new Americans.

Policies

1. Elevate English acquisition to a national priority. We should establish robust English-language programs for both children and adults by expanding English classes through community colleges, public libraries, and faith institutions. This would entail new minimum English-language proficiency requirements for migration to the U.S. or for integration within a reasonable period upon arrival, depending on the visa type.
   
2. Support civic education and constitutional literacy. Comprehensive civic education programs that teach immigrants about American history, constitutional principles, and civic responsibilities would foster a deeper understanding of the society’s values and institutions. We should also reform the citizenship test to emphasize an understanding of American values rather than rote memorization of facts, and create public-private partnerships to develop innovative civic education programs.
    
3. Make military service an integration pathway.³⁶ We should strengthen, reform, and revitalize the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI) program³⁷ to allow legal noncitizens with critical skills to serve in the U.S. military and gain expedited citizenship after a period of service. Extending eligibility to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)³⁸ recipients and other long-term residents with clean records would recognize military service as profound evidence of commitment to American values.
   
4. Support community integration initiatives. Funding local integration programs tied to measurable metrics that connect immigrants with their broader communities can be done through volunteer opportunities, cultural exchanges, and civic participation. Creating mechanisms to measure integration success beyond economic metrics — such as civic participation, English acquisition, and social connectivity — would better inform both native-born citizens and immigrants about what integration looks like across different parts of the country.

The problem

America’s strategic position in the world weakens daily while we squander immigration’s geopolitical potential. China and other aggressive competitors are rapidly expanding their workforce pools, whereas we are draining ours due to bureaucratic indifference and political paralysis.³⁹ Dictatorships in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela weaponize migration to destabilize our political life, while we fail our regional partners by denying them preferential migration arrangements. Our adversaries systematically exploit their diaspora populations for espionage and influence operations, while we neglect to harness the strategic insights and moral authority of those who have fled those very regimes. This represents not merely a policy failure but a strategic blindness: Now and in the years ahead, human capital flows will determine global power as decisively as any other strategic resource.

Beijing is currently executing a comprehensive strategy targeting the world’s scientific, technological, and entrepreneurial elite through its Thousand Talents Program⁴⁰ and similar initiatives to recruit top scientists, directly transferring American innovation potential to Chinese soil.⁴¹ Meanwhile, Russia and Iran manipulate refugee flows to sow discord within NATO, weaponizing human misery while we respond with neither coherence nor resolve.⁴² Our immigration policy remains divorced from our broader national security strategy. As a result, we exclude precisely those immigrants who would strengthen our hand against our adversaries while unwittingly admitting those who undermine our security.

Most shamefully, America, once the beacon for dissidents worldwide, has abdicated its role as a sanctuary for those who challenge tyranny. We leave opposition leaders, journalists, and human rights activists to languish in bureaucratic limbo while they could be serving as our most potent ideological weapons against authoritarian regimes. As witnesses to oppression’s reality, they are strategic assets we carelessly discard, weakening both our moral standing and our information warfare capabilities.

Does harnessing immigration as a strategic asset carry potential security risks? Of course. Any system that expands legal pathways, engages diaspora communities, or prioritizes dissidents from authoritarian regimes creates opportunities for infiltration, espionage, and influence operations. But those challenges are not insurmountable. With a strong, modern security apparatus, the United States can both mitigate threats and capitalize on the greater strategic advantages of immigration. The choice is not between openness and security; it is between stagnation born of fear and confident leadership that manages risk while unlocking human potential as a tool of national power.

Principles

Immigration policy must serve as a core component of U.S. national strategy. In an era of intensifying global competition, the United States should design immigration pathways that reinforce our alliances, attract top talent from strategic competitors, and offer refuge to dissidents fleeing repressive regimes. Our ability to recruit, integrate, and empower the world’s best minds is a decisive advantage in the contest between liberty and authoritarianism. Every visa decision should be guided by the goal of amplifying America’s global leadership. Immigration is not merely a domestic concern; it is a forward deployment of American power.

Policies

1. Give migration preferences to our democratic allies. Our immigration policy should include expanding Visa Waiver Program membership to key democratic allies, including Argentina, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and other democracies that meet our security requirements.⁴³ Creating expedited processing channels for citizens of treaty allies and strategic partners would demonstrate U.S. commitment to these relationships and strengthen the people-to-people ties that cement alliances beyond government agreements.
   
2. View talent acquisition from adversary nations as a strategic goal. We can serve U.S. interests and diminish our adversaries by establishing specialized visa pathways targeting scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and other skilled professionals from Russia, China, Iran, and other competitor nations. These pathways should offer expedited processing, simplified requirements, and clear routes to permanent residence and citizenship. Every researcher or entrepreneur we welcome represents a generational gain for America and a loss for our foes in the zero-sum talent competition.
   
3. Implement a dissident protection initiative. A dedicated program providing expedited sanctuary to verified pro-democracy activists, journalists, military defectors, and human rights defenders from authoritarian regimes would serve two powerful purposes: It would protect them and amplify their voices — and thus ours — through partnerships with American media, think tanks, and educational institutions.
   
4. Hemispheric security framework. By developing a comprehensive migration cooperation framework with Latin American democracies, we could address security concerns while creating preferential pathways for citizens of participating countries. This framework should include intelligence sharing, joint border-enforcement operations, and coordinated activity in countering transnational criminal organizations that profit from human trafficking and undermine regional stability.

The United States stands at a crossroads on immigration. After decades of dysfunction, denial, and delay, the cost of inaction is no longer abstract; it is felt in our labor markets, our border communities, and our courtrooms, and it’s reflected in our credibility as a nation of laws and opportunity. The time has come to stop choosing between false binaries — between compassion and control; between integration and enforcement; between dynamism and apathy. We can have a system that does all of these, if we dare to build it.

We have set forth the outlines of a centrist, forward-looking immigration system whose pillars form a blueprint for reform rooted in the principles of order, fairness, national interest, and institutional competence. Like any well-designed structure, its individual elements are mutually supporting and form a highly functional whole equipped to accommodate interlocking aims guided by the American values of individual liberty, freedom of conscience, personal potential, fairness, commitment to community, and love of country. Most of all, this blueprint recognizes that immigrants, when selected and integrated thoughtfully, are not a burden to manage but a source of economic, cultural, and civic renewal.

But a modern immigration system requires more than good policy. It requires functioning institutions, predictable rules, and a shared commitment from all sides to achieve these shared goals. Given how much common ground we already share, we’re halfway there.