Time to Start Talking about Comprehensive Immigration Reform?

[updated] If the current administration has a particular genius, it is for finding and exploiting weaknesses in systems and people. Its brutal treatment of immigrants is a product of neglected problems in the immigration system and the sad willingness of some to believe that people from other countries stand between them and a better life.

While we look for ways to fight the abuse of the system now, we also need to look ahead and strategize for comprehensive immigration reform, something that hasn’t happened this century. The president’s second term has demonstrated that immigration is a fact of American life in ways that people didn’t realize until members of their communities were harassed, detained or deported. Republicans for decades have used the danger posed by foreign nationals to mobilize base voters, but the current administration’s tactics have changed that.

Now Hostility toward Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the government’s immigration enforcement efforts are undeniable. A February Marist Poll showed that 65 percent of Americans think ICE has gone too far, which includes 93 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of Republicans—up four percent from the previous poll. A UMass Amhearst poll conducted in March found that 54 percent disapproved of how the president has handled the deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Even people who supported the idea of deporting dangerous criminals have been concerned when members of their communities were seized in military-like raids despite being law-abiding except for their immigration status. The brutality and callousness of the government’s approach has created an opportunity for change that didn’t exist 10 or 20 years ago. People seeing the abuses the current system can permit is opening minds to other possibilities.

For years, Republicans have generally taken a hard stance against paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but that is changing. According to Eric Gonzalez Juenke, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and the Chicano/Latino Studies Program at Michigan State University, “Recent polling suggests that Republican voters support a path to citizenship for the undocumented, but also support securing the U.S. border. These two pillars of comprehensive immigration policy, in fact, enjoy majority support from all voters…. [P]olling also shows broad bipartisan voter support for fixing the U.S. immigration system.”

Recently, the American Immigration Council (AIC) laid out some basic principles for comprehensive immigration reform, focusing on compliance, safety, proportionality, and accountability. “These principles are grounded in the belief that a credible and humane immigration enforcement system is the only way to truly preserve the public safety and well-being of American communities in a way that lives up to our values and protects the rule of law,” according to writers Aaron Reichlin-Melnick and Nayna Gupta.

In short, they think these ideas need to be factored into thinking about how to envision a more just immigration system:

• Compliance: “A system that emphasizes compliance must offer people who want to follow the rules an opportunity to do so; rewarding them when they meet requirements, and imposing consequences if they do not.”
• Safety: “Safety is built around the understanding that law enforcement protects a community best when it can work with the community, and not against it.”
• Proportionality: “In this newly envisioned system, there will still be many people who end up in removal proceedings facing deportation. But unlike today, under the Council’s framework, removal proceedings would allow for more proportionate consequences for violations of the law.”
• Accountability: “Finally, a credible and humane immigration enforcement system must be accountable to the public and to Congress. While impunity among immigration officials has been an issue for years, the raids of American cities, leading to civil unrest and the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, among others, demonstrate that an unaccountable enforcement system makes us all less safe.”

Much of this seems self-evident, but it obviously isn’t. No one, from a parent to a teacher to a boss to a government, has ever successfully punished someone into meaningful change. Real change comes when people are given positive incentives to do so. We’ve written before that the danger posed by turning all arms of law enforcement against undocumented immigrants is that it isolates immigrant communities regardless of status and leaves them vulnerable to crime and abuse.

The addition of proportionality brings a valuable thought to the conversation. Right now, if judges find immigrants to be removable and not eligible for relief options, they have no choice but to deport them. “The Council’s framework proposes that once an immigration judge determines that a person may be deported, the judge can address the violation of civil immigration law with proportionate penalties, such as fines, community service, or probation,” Reichlin-Melnick and Gupta wrote.

AIC’s framework looks to influence legislation that may come after the current administration is out of office since it’s hard to imagine one so in love with the strong man posture will change any time soon. This week though, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) tried to influence Congress’ budget reconciliation debate and encouraged codification of a more humanitarian approach.

“We encourage members of both parties to reject partisan appropriations funding and instead rededicate yourselves to a collaborative process that pursues the common good and promotes human dignity and flourishing,” they wrote to Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

USCCB similarly presented a concept for Congress to keep in mind, contending, “Enforcement of immigration laws cannot truly advance the common good without reasonable conditions that ensure respect for the God-given dignity of each person, inherent in which is the exercise of certain fundamental rights.”

While some try to influence future debates on immigration, Maryland is making changes now. In April, Governor Wes Moore signed three new immigration-related bills into law. The Maryland Values Act of 2026 requires school personnel to notify a county superintendent if an immigration enforcement action takes place at a school in Maryland, and it forbids public school employees from assisting ICE or sharing students’ data without a warrant.

SB0792 calls on hospitals to create policies for what to do when immigration enforcement actions take place on their premises, and HB1017 bans the private detention centers frequently used by ICE from operating in Maryland. These come on top of laws that have already passed, including one to ban formal partnerships between ICE and Maryland law enforcement agencies.

New York's state legislature and senate have also passed a suite of similar immigration-related that Governor Kathy Hochul is expected to sign into law. The package forbids law enforcement officers from wearing masks in New York, and it will designate that "sensitive locations" including hospitals, churches, homes, and summer camps, can deny access to ICE. It will also affirm the rights of children to attend school, regardless of their immigration status. 

State and municipal employees--with the exception of police officers-- will be prohibited from sharing information with ICE, and New York law enforcement agencies will be forbidden from entering into 287(g) agreements that formalize the relationship between ICE and other agencies so that local agents can make immigration arrests. It will also forbid local jails from detaining people for civil immigration offenses. That has been used to detain immigrants whose only offense is being undocumented--it's not a criminal offense.

ICE actions on behalf of the current administration have traumatized Americans, and they have created a context for change. After the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Republican Congressman Mike Lawler wrote a guest editorial for The New York Times echoing the voices of the millions who couldn’t accept the way the immigration system has been weaponized. We don’t share visions for immigration reform as Lawler advocates stricter border policies, a path to legal status but not citizenship, and mandatory work requirements, but we do share a big picture goal. “We must be a nation of laws but also one that offers dignity and compassion to those seeking to pursue their American dream,” Lawler wrote.

And the first step to change comes when you acknowledge there’s a problem.

Updated Friday, May 22 at 9:46 a.m.

The material on New York state's legislation was added after the post was first published.