Some Quick And Simple Immigration Reforms

1. Ease the path to citizenship for people eligible for green cards.

Grant everyone with lawful permanent residency (a.k.a. a "green card"), immediate U.S. citizenship without a citizenship exam, without an English language exam, and without a fee.

Short of that, allow green card holders to do that after the three or five year waiting period that must elapse to be eligible for citizenship under current law, a minimal check to confirm that you haven't had a criminal record or gone out of visa status since you had your green card issued, and a much more modest fee than under the current law (since the administrative process is much simpler).

We shouldn't have the second class citizenship status of lawful permanent residents, who can't vote, can't serve on juries, and are subject to having their green card revoked and being deported if they have a little misstep in life.

Keep in mind also that many green card holders got their green cards when they were children at the sponsorship of a parent, who may have, for whatever reason, not gotten their citizenship (maybe the parent immigrated at middle age or older when learning English fluently is much harder than when you are young, or they can't afford to hire an immigration lawyer to learn what to do).

This also supports that idea that people who permanently reside someplace should be part of the political community there.

New Zealand, while it doesn't go quite this far, does allow non-citizens who have lived there legally for a year or more to vote in its elections, and the E.U. does the same in local elections and in E.U. elections.

2. Create a ten year statute of limitations on deportations that can be converted to citizenship.

I would propose that there be a statute of limitations of ten years of presence in the U.S. after ceasing to be in legal immigration status, after which you cannot be deported. At any time when you cannot be deported, you are eligible to become a U.S. citizen if you can pass a criminal record check and pay a modest fee (but perhaps more than the usual immigration application fee) that functions as a civil penalty for failing to keep in valid immigration status.

As it is we have a complex web of exceptions and paths to citizenship for law abiding citizens who have lived in the U.S. for a long time and have strong ties to the U.S. This would also avoid the need for Congress to periodically pass amnesty legislation (as it did in the Reagan administration) or for the President to establish regulatory safe harbors like DACA.

In pre-modern Europe, there was a similar practice in independent self-governing democratic city-states. People who weren't citizens of the city-state could only be kicked out for not being a citizen for a year after entering it (most of them were centers for merchants, and trade and craftsmen, so lots of outsiders came in and out of the cities on a regular basis), and you became a citizen of the city-state at that point.

This also supports that idea that people who permanently reside someplace should be part of the political community there. We don't want to follow the model of the Arabian oil monarchies where a large part of the resident population (a majority in many cases) are "guest workers" without the full rights of citizens.

3. Issue automatic green cards for graduates of English language of instruction colleges and universities.

Graduates with four year degrees or graduate degrees from U.S. colleges and universities in which the language of instruction is English (or in Puerto Rico, Spanish), and a clean criminal record, should automatically be entitled to a green card (or, if green cards are abolished per the first proposal above, citizenship).

Brain drain is in the best interests of the U.S. Our colleges and universities (at least prior to Trump 2.0), attract more of the best and brightest and most promising foreign students in the world. These promising young people who have what it takes to function as productive members of our society shouldn't have to find a U.S. spouse to gain immigration status or a major tech firm for an H1-B visa to stay in the U.S.

Indeed, our borders should be open to any four year college or graduate school college graduate, who earned their degree at an institution where the primary language of instruction is English, and can pass a basic criminal record background check, even if they studied, for example, in Canada, or the U.K., or the Republic of Ireland, or New Zealand, or Australia.

4. Make most skilled work visas convertible to green cards.

People who complete the duration of their H1-B tech visas, or other work authorizing visas that require some high level of skill, should be able to convert their work visas to green cards at the end of the original term of those visas, if they have a clean criminal record, should automatically be entitled to a green card (or, if green cards are abolished per the first proposal above, citizenship).

In addition to H-1B (highly skilled workers mostly in tech), this should include people on L-1 visas (multinationals), O-1 visas (genius visas), P-1 visas (athletes and entertainers), TN visas (NAFTA professionals), EB-1 visas (extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics; outstanding professors or researchers; and certain multinational executives and managers), EB-2 visas (members of the professions holding advanced degrees or for persons with exceptional ability in the arts, sciences, or business), EB-3 visas (professionals, skilled workers, and other workers), EB-4 visas (“special immigrants,” which includes certain religious workers, employees of U.S. foreign service posts, retired employees of international organizations, alien minors who are wards of courts in the United States, and other classes of aliens), and EB-5 visas (business investors who invest $1,050,000 or $800,000 (if the investment is made in a targeted employment area) in a new commercial enterprise that employs at least 10 full-time U.S. workers).

Again, brain drain is in the interests of the U.S. and these individuals, if they are able to work at their work visa job for the duration of the visa, have proven that they are highly valuable and productive contributors to our society whom we want to keep.

5. Eliminate quotas for visas for highly skilled people and immediate family.

There should be no quotas (and not waiting for an annual quota period) for H-1B, L-1 visas, O-1 visas, P-1 visas, TN visas, EB visas, spousal visas, or visa for minor children of people who hold these visas. 

These individuals are an asset to our country and the more we have, the more prosperous and vital we will be.

6. Issue automatic green cards for graduates of English language of instruction high schools who came to the U.S. as children.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals who, on June 15, 2012, were physically present in the United States with no lawful immigration status after having entered the country as children at least five years earlier, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for an employment authorization document (work permit). . . .

To qualify for DACA, applicants must meet the following major requirements, although meeting them does not guarantee approval:

• Have unlawful presence in United States after entering the country before their 16th birthday
• Have lived continuously in the United States since June 15, 2007
• Were under age 31 on as of June 15, 2012 (born on June 16, 1981, or after)
• Were physically present in the United States on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making their request for consideration of deferred action with USCIS
• Had no lawful status on June 15, 2012
• Have completed high school or a GED, have been honorably discharged from the armed forces, or are enrolled in school
• Have not been convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanors, or three or more other misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.

From Wikipedia. 

If you come to the U.S. before age 16 (usually something that is not fully your decision) and you graduate from high school in the U.S. from a high school where English is the primary language of instruction (or Spanish in Puerto Rico),  or have been honorably discharged from the military, or have a GED, and don't have a serious felony (see below) on your criminal record, you should be automatically entitled to a green card (or, if green cards are abolished per the first proposal above, citizenship).

You are functionally just as assimilated into U.S. society as people born in the U.S. in immigrant households.

7. Grant U.S. citizenship more promptly and automatically to people in U.S. military service.

If they are good enough to fight for the U.S. in the military, they should be granted citizenship. Perhaps allow for a probationary period to make sure that non-citizens enlisting in the U.S. military make it through basic training and training in their military occupational specialty, without being discharged. But once they have started actually serving in the military, and not just training, they should be granted U.S. citizenship.

8. Limit relevant criminal offenses for immigration purposes to felonies.

Criminal offenses that have a potential for changing your immigration status should be limited to crimes punishable by more than two years in prison (which reflects the fact that in some states, misdemeanors are punishable by up to two years in jail or prison, even though the usual sentences are typically much shorter).

Traffic offenses, or fishing ordinance violations, or public order offenses, for example, should not be grounds for denying someone immigration status. People permanently in the U.S. should not be one misdemeanor, ordinance violation, or petty offense away from being deported.

9. Decriminalize merely being undocumented.

The lowest level immigration offense, of unlawful entry or overstaying your visa, which is a low level misdemeanor, makes up a surprising large share of the criminal docket of the federal courts, especially in states along the Mexican border, during Presidential administration that choose to prosecute this as a crime. The single most commonly charged federal crime is illegal reentry by an alien which accounts for 27.5% of all federal criminal defendants.

Unlawful entry (even repeatedly) or overstaying your visa (even repeatedly) should simply be a non-criminal grounds for deporting someone until they attain legal immigration status or have remained in the U.S. for ten years.

Criminalization in unnecessarily punitive and stigmatizing, for not very culpable conduct that is victimless, and costs money spent incarcerating and processing someone as a criminal who will just be deported again anyway once the sentence is served.

Criminalization also gets in the way of the efficient functioning of the immigration system. A criminal prosecution involves proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a right to trial by jury, a right to counsel, a necessity of a criminal case before an Article III judge or a magistrate in an Article III court, in person presence in the courtroom, etc. A civil action would require only proof by a preponderance of the evidence, no right to trial by jury, no right to counsel, and not even necessarily involvement of an Article III court or in person presence in the courtroom.

10. Eliminate family based visas for remote family.

Family based visas are subject to quotas and typically have long waiting lists. Those waiting lists are particularly long for more distant relatives who may have to be on waiting lists for many, many years to finally receive them.

A limited number (480,000) of green cards are given out to other relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. The wait tends to range from three to twenty four years. Brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens wait the longest.

The wait is longer for family members from some countries than it is from others in this category. People from Mexico and the Philippines, for example, face very long wait times in this categories of preferred family members.

The following are the preferences in order of preference:

Unlimited

• spouses and recent widows and widowers of U.S. citizens
• children (unmarried under age 21), stepchildren, and stepparents as long as the marriage occurred before the child was age 18, and
• adopted children as long as the adoption takes place before the age of 16.

Limited by a 480,000 person a year quota with additional country quotas:

• Unmarried children of a U.S. citizen who are age 21 or older
• Spouses and unmarried children of a Green Card Holder (this includes two subcategories, 2A and 2B; children over age 21 are in category 2B, and wait longer than those in 2A)
• Married children of at least one U.S. citizen parent
• Sisters and brothers of U.S. citizens, where the citizen is at least age 21

Rather than encouraging so many people to apply for visas that they will have to wait many years for and may never receive, we should just eliminate the lower priority family visas entirely, probably at least the last two categories, while upgrading spouses and unmarried children under age 21 of green card holders. 

This would leave only unmarried children over age 21 of U.S. citizens and green card holders in the extended family category with quotas.