I remember the day Lily* raised her right hand and became an American citizen. The process began in the early 2000s and spanned nearly 10 years. Sponsoring Lily felt natural to me because I had seen it done before. Years earlier, my mother sponsored a woman named Beverly* through the lawful, employment-based immigration system that existed at the time. Her case also took about 10 years.
Today, Lily is a trained medical assistant. Her daughter, whom Lily later sponsored legally, is now a nurse. Beverly became a teacher. Her daughter is now a social worker. All four are United States citizens and work in professions that serve the public. All four followed the law as it existed. This was not unusual; it was exactly what employment-based immigration was designed to produce.
Immigration law in the United States has never been static. When my grandparents and great-grandparents arrived in the early 20th century, there was no visa system as we understand it today. Many European immigrants arrived without prior authorization and were inspected at ports of entry. If they passed medical and legal screenings, they were admitted under the law in effect at the time, and later became eligible for citizenship through a separate naturalization process. It was no doubt a deeply biased and exclusionary system, but for those who met the criteria, the path from lawful presence to permanent residence and, eventually, citizenship was clear and attainable.
Beginning in the 1910s and 1920s, Congress formalized immigration restrictions through literacy tests, expanded categories of exclusion, and national-origin quotas, sharply restricting or excluding immigration from certain countries. These measures reflected political and cultural fears of assimilation rather than any fixed economic logic. That structure persisted into the mid-20th century. In the early 1950s, decades of statutes were consolidated into a single framework, formalizing visa categories, enforcement authority, and deportation rules while preserving the national-origins quota system.
In 1965, Congress abolished the national-origins quotas altogether and replaced them with a system centered on family reunification and employment-based immigration, subject to numerical limits and preference categories. It was an effort to replace race-based exclusion with lawful pathways that required sponsorship, documentation, background checks, and years of waiting. For a while, that system worked, even with its limits. It was slow and bureaucratic, but those who qualified could move from temporary status to lawful permanent residence and, eventually, to citizenship. Over time, however, the economy’s demand for labor grew faster than Congress was willing to expand legal immigration channels, and undocumented populations expanded as a result.
The last time Congress directly acknowledged this mismatch was in 1986 during Ronald Reagan’s administration, when the law legalized roughly 2.7 million undocumented immigrants who had been living and working in the United States for years, while also increasing enforcement and penalizing employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers. The goal was to realistically deal with people already embedded in the workforce while restoring credibility to the system going forward. Research since then shows that the United States and the people who gained legal status benefited from the law with greater productivity, increased homeownership, and improved educational outcomes for children.
What didn't follow was a durable solution. Congress didn't expand work-based immigration to match economic demand, nor did it create an ongoing legalization mechanism. Instead, in the 1990s, immigration policy began shifting sharply toward enforcement. Laws enacted during that period and afterward expanded deportation authority, limited eligibility, and imposed reentry bars that make it extraordinarily difficult for undocumented immigrants to adjust status legally, even when an employer or family member is willing to sponsor them.
At the same time, the economy continues to rely on immigrant labor. Undocumented immigrants are already deeply embedded in the workforce and the tax base. In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes, including billions in payroll taxes that support Social Security and Medicare, even though many are barred from accessing those programs. These contributions reflect the reality that people without legal status are already sustaining the systems around them.
Public debate rarely engages with how legalization and integration have worked in the past.
Concerns about border security, drug trafficking, and human smuggling are real and deserve serious attention. At the same time, claims that immigrants broadly take jobs from native-born workers are not supported by the strongest evidence. Polling also consistently shows broad public support for pathways to legal status and citizenship when they are paired with background checks, work requirements, and tax compliance.
Despite this, public debate rarely engages with how legalization and integration have worked in the past. What dominates instead is crisis framing: border surges, caravans, drugs, walls, mass deportation. The focus has shifted from structure and solutions to enforcement alone, which has proven insufficient.
My mother, Lily, Beverly, and I did not break the law. We used the law as it stood at the time. It was slow and imperfect, but it worked. The people we sponsored are now Americans who staff hospitals, teach children, and provide social services. Their stories are not exceptions. They are what happens when legal pathways exist, and people are given time to integrate.
The United States has rewritten its immigration laws many times. Republicans and Democrats have done so when reality demanded it. Pairing enforcement with legalization is not radical. It is historically grounded, economically practical, and consistent with how this country has addressed immigration challenges in the past. It can expand employment-based immigration to better align with labor market demand. It can adjust visa caps that have remained frozen for decades despite population and economic growth. It can create legalization programs for people who have lived and worked in the country for years, tied to background checks, tax compliance, and continued employment, as it did in 1986, while also securing the border and deporting serious criminals.
Although never perfect, history shows that the United States has built better immigration pathways. Just ask Lily and Beverly.
The question is not whether it can be done again. The question is why we no longer seem willing to talk about it at all.
*Names changed to protect identity.
Allison Carmen is chief financial officer, chief business operator, and general counsel of the Motherhood Center of New York (NY, NY). She's also an author, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. Her books include The Gift of Maybe: Offering Hope and Possibility in Uncertain Times (Tarcher/Penguin Random House), A Year Without Men: A Twelve Point Guide to Inspire and Empower Women (Skyhorse Publishing), and the audiobook original Maybe Everything is Okay: A Parent's Guide to Less Stress and Worry (Tantor Media). Allison Carmen’s top-rated podcast, 10 Minutes To Less Suffering, helps people alleviate daily stress and worry.
