EXCELLENT — The Long Term Reality Of the American Immigration System

This is written by one of my deeply brave, wise, and fiercely caring activist friends. I post this anonymously because of his immigration status which may put him at further risk. So many are at risk today! That said, what is shared here is crucial for us all to know and understand. And if ever you're looking for something to share with friends, family, or anyone who believes that the deportations of immigrants and others by this administration and those of the past is a great thing, pass this on. Too many continue to not understand the underlying dehumanization, cruelty, racism, and justification for violence that is being perpetrated on our immigrant sisters and brothers. Too many believe the propaganda which criminalizes and demonizes immigrants or are silent in the face of ever growing injustice, cruelty, and terror. So please read and pass this on. And please act in any way that you possibly can to expose and stop this madness. Thank you. We are all connected, all related, all family. — Molly

Photo by Molly

The Long Term Reality Of the American

Immigration System

My 2 cents after watching Marco Rubio rant about how "lawless" the country has become when it comes to immigrants on Meet The Press.

From the perspective of someone who has been involved in immigration activism for close to 20 years, one of the remarkable things about this era is that while the media constantly talks about how "overly lax" this immigration system is, it has rarely been harsher. And the asylum system has been gutted by presidents of both Parties.

The reality is that for a majority of undocumented immigrants, there is NO pathway to legalization whatsoever. I have a friend who was brought here without inspection (I prefer using that euphemism rather than calling him "illegal") when he was 3 years old. He is in his early 40's now and despite the fact that you would never be able to tell that he is undocumented (since he is culturally American), there is no legal process that will legalize him.

This is one of the key paradoxes of the issue.

For years, Republicans and Democrats have reacted to the "crisis" of having a population of undocumented immigrants by continuing to ramp up more enforcement measures, (money for CBP, ICE, fence building, drones, etc...) even as they have made the process of legalizing harsher and harsher. Every few years, they have made an already long, onerous and expensive process even more so.

By doing so, they have locked more people into the category of "undocumented." And so the population of undocumented folks has grown and grown because people don't have a legal process to regularize their status.

And now we are in the era of "final solution" to the crisis, which involves deporting as many people as possible. And beyond just deporting regular folks who are locked out of the legalization process, many of the recent deportation targets are individuals who are 5,10, 20 years or more into the legalization process. People are getting picked up while going to their regular immigration check in's AS THEY ARE TRYING TO FOLLOW THE LAW. It has gotten so absurd that recently, a group of undocumented immigrants trying to leave the country were detained at the border so that they could be incarcerated and THEN have formal deportation proceedings started on them. That's right, they are even going after the people who are indeed trying to "self-deport." (By the way, the private prison industry which has had a terrifyingly high level of influence over policy has deeply benefited from all of this).

But there are VERY FEW articles that explain how broken the regular immigration system is so many US citizens assume that this immigration crisis is the fault of uncooperative undocumented immigrants who "refuse" to legalize. In all of my years of activism, I have never encountered an undocumented immigrant who has preferred to stay that way. Believe me, the daily life of an undocumented person in the US is incredibly hard.

We live in a moralistic country with simple narratives. It is easier to believe that undocumented folks are simply too lazy to legalize than to face the fact that a country whose symbol used to be the Statue of Liberty has become a nation that has continually ramped up its harshness and cruelty towards migrants for years.

And now we are in the apotheosis of this cruelty.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, with his wife, Jenni Vasquez, who was illegally deported to El Salvador on March 15, 2025.

Guatemalan immigrants, deported from the United StatesBob Owen/San Antonio Express-News/Zuma

President Donald Trump's administration transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime declaration. A federal judge's order temporarily barring the move came too late to stop the deportations. 

Central American migrants expelled from the United States area of El Paso, Texas, gather at the Paso del Norte-Santa Fe international bridge, in Ciudad Juarez, state of Chihuahua, Mexico, on March 18, 2021. Herika Martinez / AFP - Getty Images