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.
今年，提交綠卡申請的人中只有約3%將獲得永久居留身分。近3500 萬份申請正在等待處理，而1996 年為1000 萬份。第一批積壓案件始於一個世紀前，當時首次實施了移民上限，隨著移民法因政治原因，變得更加嚴格和複雜，積壓的速度也隨著迅速加快。
在一個阻礙合法和有序移民的制度中，上限和配額、處理延遲以及可用綠卡的浪費是司空見慣的。專家建議，最好的解決方案是取消上限並大幅擴大合法移民，並認為美國經濟將受益匪淺，社會安全基金也同樣的將受益匪淺。
我們的小組將討論為什麼我們的合法移民制度達到了這個危機點，解決方案是什麼，以及為什麼美國可以輕鬆吸收新合法化的人口並從中受益。