For more than a decade, efforts to systematically overhaul the United States immigration system have been overshadowed by other events—from foreign wars and national security concerns to the financial crisis that threatened to bring down the world economy. In addition to this ever-changing list of national crises, years of partisan political fighting and the resurgence of a volatile restrictionist movement that thrives on angry rhetoric have made opportunities for advancing genuine reform few and far between. As a result, many in both parties opted for a political strategy that emphasized immigration enforcement over immigration reform, holding to the argument that efficiently deporting non-citizens would reduce illegal immigration and pave the way for more sensible outcomes in the future. Instead, the unprecedented spending on immigration enforcement, the extraordinary rise in deportations, the passage of state anti-immigrant laws, and the almost daily anecdotes of separated families and discrimination finally took their toll. Voters signaled in the 2012 federal elections that they were tired of enforcement-only immigration policies and the senseless pain they caused. Now more than ever, the opportunity to craft immigration laws that reflect American values and needs is a distinct possibility. The White House, Members of Congress, and countless organizations have issued new ideas and principles for making the system work. These proposals vary and will likely change even more as proposals translate into legislation, but there are a number of common themes that exist. This paper lays out an overview of the underlying legal system, the most basic principles of reform, the reasons behind them, and how they are likely to be reflected in coming legislation.

The Immigration and Nationality Act in a Nutshell

Although Americans routinely acknowledge that the United States is a nation of immigrants, the system of laws that govern who can immigrate, who can visit, who can stay, and under what conditions is largely unknown to most people. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952 is a complex and often confusing collection of laws that does everything from setting forth qualifications for naturalization to regulating foreign students to managing temporary workers to authorizing humanitarian protections such as asylum and refugee admissions. The INA also contains quotas or limits on the number of legal immigrants who may come to the country each year, numbers which were last adjusted in 1990. In addition, the INA has authorized "relief" from deportation over the years. Providing relief through various laws allowed an individual to make the case that he or she should be permitted to enter or remain in the United States, despite being in violation of immigration laws, based on family unity, contributions to the community, or other humanitarian concerns. Similarly, the INA has been amended numerous times both to expand access to the United States (based on characteristics of immigrants such as country of origin, occupation, and humanitarian factors) and to restrict access (based on criminal convictions, occupations, or political affiliations). Critics of these amendments routinely argue that we are either too generous or too restrictive in whom we allow to enter and remain in the United States, setting the stage for political arguments that have little to do with immigration itself and far more to do with issues of race, economics, culture, and identity.

What kinds of events prompt changes in immigration law?

Immigration reform is often fueled by other aspects of social change when the American public realizes that immigration law lags behind other social reforms. For instance, against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the 1965 amendments to the INA eliminated biases in the law that favored European immigrants over all others. Following the refugee crises brought on by the Vietnam War, Congress enacted refugee and asylum provisions in 1980 that brought the United States into compliance with international standards of refugee protection. In 1986, driven by increased unauthorized immigration and few means to control it, Congress created a trade-off—legalization of approximately three million unauthorized immigrants in exchange for requiring all workers to establish their eligibility for employment in the United States.

By 1996, when unauthorized immigration was still not in check, many in Congress blamed the more generous provisions of the INA for the problem. As a result, lawmakers, led by then-House Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), enacted a harsh new immigration removal scheme that eliminated or restricted many forms of relief, required mandatory detention and removal for many immigration violations, and authorized extensive or permanent bars on admission following a deportation. In subsequent years, the severity of these measures and the hardships experienced by many unauthorized immigrants who had fled civil wars and violence in Central America, Haiti, and the former Soviet Union led Congress to pass some small legalization programs, but nothing on the scale of the 1986 law.

On September 10, 2001, President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox were making plans for a new temporary worker program and other immigration reforms, brought about by a booming economy, efforts to build a stronger partnership with Mexico, and a rise in unauthorized immigration. Of course, that initiative and many others fell by the wayside on September 11, to be replaced with enhanced national security and anti-terrorism laws, many of which attempted to regulate possible threats to the country through restrictions on immigration