2023 saw record-breaking numbers of migrant crossings at the southwestern border, with Border Patrol reporting nearly 250,000 encounters in December alone. But today, less than 1% of those looking to reside permanently in the U.S. can do so legally, according to CATO. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse estimates that the immigration court currently has a backlog of over 3 million cases. So how did the immigration system in the U.S. get so broken? And can it ever be fixed?

In the U.S., 62.6% of permanent resident, or “green,” cards go toward family-sponsored immigrants, compared with just 21.1% for employment-based sponsorships, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Cato Institute estimates that just 1 in 1,500 new hires in the U.S. receives a green card through employment sponsorship programs.

The U.S. legal immigration system is in dire need of reform to make it work for the U.S. economy, experts say.

“I think the limitations for the numbers of annual immigrants was last updated in 1990 when our population was smaller and when the kinds of work that we did in this country was different,” Brown said.

Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said, “What I would like to see are reforms to make the majority of people who come here legally as immigrants to come because our economy needs them.”

Watch the video to see why the U.S. is having so much trouble solving the immigration crisis.

Chapters:
00:58 Legal pathways
04:12 Border security
08:55 Political stalemate

Producer: Juhohn Lee
Editor: Nora Rappaport
Animations: Jason Reginato
Supervising Producer: Lindsey Jacobson
Additional Footage: Getty Images

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What Broke The U.S. Immigration System?