News Briefings

A Century of Green Card Backlog Cripples the Immigration System

By ACoM

Briefings

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Can it be Fixed?

Was Live Fri, Mar. 1, 2024

Guest Speakers

  • David J. Bier, Associate Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute
  • Jack Malde, Senior Policy Analyst, Immigration and Workforce Policy at Bipartisan Policy Center 
  • Cyrus Mehta, Immigration Lawyer and the Founder and Managing Partner of Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners

Event Overview

This year, only about 3% of the people who have submitted green card applications will receive permanent status. Close to 35 million applications are pending, up from 10 million in 1996. The first backlogs started a century ago, when the first immigration caps were applied, and they have quickly accelerated as the immigration laws became more restrictive and complicated because of politics.

Caps and quotas, processing delays, and waste of available green cards are par for the course in a system that discourages legal and orderly immigration. Experts suggest that the best solution would be to lift caps and significantly expand legal immigration, and argue that the US economy would benefit tremendously, as would the Social Security fund.

Our panel will discuss why we reached this crisis point in our legal immigration system, what the solutions are, and why the United States can easily absorb and benefit from the newly legalized population.

Presented by American Community Media