By Susan Martin, Ph.D.,LWVUS Immigration Discussion Group Co-Leader 

Donald G. Herzberg Professor Emerita of International Migration, Georgetown University

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Many Americans have been following the efforts of the Trump administration to detain and deport undocumented

immigrants. Less covered in the press are concurrent efforts to curtail the lawful entry and stay of immigrants. I am often asked why undocumented immigrants do not come into the country lawfully. The answer is in the convoluted legal immigration system.

There are multiple ways in which intending immigrants can obtain a legal status, but each has limitations. About 1 million people are granted Lawful Permanent Resident status (LPRs), also known as green cards, which provides a pathway to U.S. citizenship. About 65% come with family-based visas. This category allows spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens to obtain visas outside of annual quotas. It also allows the spouses and children of LPRs and the siblings of U.S. citizens to obtain visas, within per-country and per-category of entry quotas, which leads to large backlogs. Many new LPRs are already living in the United States.

Employment visas represent 16% of LPR admissions, including the employees and their spouses and children. Most of these visas are assigned to applicants with at least a bachelor’s degree. As in the family-based visas, there are long backlogs in processing applications for employment visas, with some applicants waiting years to gain their green card.The number of refugees and asylees receiving LPR status (11% in 2023) varies based on the need for resettlement and the number of people granted asylum. Another 4% come with diversity visas for people from countries with low U.S. immigration rates, and 4% through other programs established by Congress.

Additional visas are issued each year for tourists, business travelers, temporary workers, foreign students, journalists, diplomats and a slew of other reasons. Most of these visas allow recipients to remain for designated periods. If they remain after that period, they become undocumented migrants. Two work visas, the L.1 visa for intra-company transfers and the H-1b visa for highly skilled workers, allow recipients to remain for six years or longer, if they apply for LPR status. However, the waiting time for LPR status can be decades for applicants from certain countries, such as India, because of annual per-country quotas.

Further lawful entries and stays are made on humanitarian grounds. Temporary Protected Status, for example, allows people already in the country who cannot return home because of conflict, disasters and other life-threatening situations to remain.

Humanitarian Parole allows people to enter the United States because of urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.

The Trump administration is making lawful entry and stay more difficult. Some of the efforts are still in litigation or are awaiting final implementation. For example, the administration has proposed a change in the definition of public charge, which bars noncitizens who rely on government support from getting a green card even if the support is for programs such as SNAP, Head Start and free school lunches. Uncertainty over how far the administration will go in assessing public charge is causing immigrants to refuse services for families, fearing it will make them ineligible for a green card.

The administration has also placed full or partial bars against the admission of people from about 90 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, even if they are the families of U.S. citizens. This is a replay on a larger scale of the Muslim ban in the first Trump administration.

The administration has revoked humanitarian parole and TPS for thousands of immigrants from countries that experienceconflicts or disasters. These programs need reform but not in the way the administration wants. They do not provide a path to LPR status even when conditions in the home country are unlikely to improve. Instead of fixing the problem, however, the administration is arguing that the conditions in countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti and South Sudan are indeed safe enough to lift TPS and humanitarian parole.

Denaturalization of U.S. citizens, which often permits their deportation, is another part of the administration’s plan.

According to the New York Times, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers are to file 100-200 denaturalization cases per month. From 2017 to 2025, only about 120 cases were filed. Denaturalization has generally been reserved for those who purposely lied in their application about material facts that would otherwise have prevented their naturalization, or who were found to have committed heinous crimes.

The administration policies are also making it harder for businesses to recruit highly skilled workers. For example, a recent rule requires employers to pay a $100,000 fee per petition for a visa, on top of existing fees of about $3,000.

Blocking lawful immigration pathways will only make our immigration system more dysfunctional. It also makes it more difficult for families to reunite, for businesses to find the skills they need and to help those facing life-threatening situation