About ten years ago Congress almost passed a bill to make millions of non-legal residents citizens‚ but now the US is heading in a totally-different direction
We know who you are‚ and weʼre going to come and find you
The US has changed alot since the 1970s when foreign-born people made up just 5% of everyone living here; nowadays its about 15%. Most western countries saw good things in letting more people in - they helped fill jobs nobody wanted and brought new skills (especially in health-care and farming)
Back in the mid-80s under Ronald Reagan‚ the government made many non-legal residents into citizens but things have changed since then. The last big try to do this failed around 2014; even though many senators liked it the House said no
- Growing number of people coming to borders
- Lots more refugees worldwide
- Political fights about immigration getting worse
- Other countries like Canada getting strict too
The new team looks super-serious about this: Thomas Homan (who made the parent-child separation thing happen last time)‚ Stephen Miller (who knows all immigration rules super-well)‚ and Kristi Noem (who sent troops to Texas) are all picked for top-jobs
Making this work wont be easy though. The courts have like 3 million cases waiting already; theres only space to hold 40000 people at once and it costs way-too-much money to do more. Plus some countries dont want their people back which makes everything harder
ICE might try going after work-places first but that didnt work great before - one big raid in Mississippi caught 700 people but the companies just kept hiring new ones. Plus lots of cities and states have rules that stop their police from helping catch non-legal residents
The whole thing could change how other countries deal with immigration too since the US has always been kind of a role-model (it has like 1/5 of all people who move to different countries)