Nation of immigrants: can America rediscover its open-borders roots?

• Author: Dalmia, Shikha
• Position: Column

EVERY COUNTRY HAS its mythology. America's is that we are a "nation of immigrants" The Statue of Liberty, the country's most iconic monument, stands tall in New York Harbor, welcoming "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." If the United States had been true to these ideals, its history would have been a simple tale of openness and acceptance. The real story is far more complex.

For the first half of its existence, America had virtually open borders. That stopped in the late 19th century, when the first major restrictions were introduced to stem the tide of incoming Asians. The country then slammed its doors shut around 1925 after anti-immigration animus, which had always bubbled beneath the surface, boiled over in the form of quotas based on national origins, among other things. For the first time, federal bureaucrats inserted themselves between willing American employers and willing foreign workers, placing strict limits on both the total number of immigrants and the number from each country.

Ever since then, every time the country has opened its door to one set of immigrants, it has rebuffed another. The upshot is a mishmash of contradictory laws that can't keep up with the desires of individuals or the needs of the American economy.

Since the 1960s, immigration laws in theory have favored family reunification and labor-force augmentation. In practice, naturalized Americans have to endure up to a two-decade wait before they can bring even certain blood relatives into the country. High-tech employers can't meet even half their need for foreign workers, who also have to wait decades to gain permanent residency.

Yet the tech sector has it easy compared to the agricultural, hospitality, and construction industries. Their demand for foreign laborers is even greater, but the work visas available are both fewer and less usable. And contrary to popular belief, there is no "line" for poor or low-skilled foreign workers seeking to gain permanent residency.

All of this has helped create a massive unauthorized population whose fate is polarizing the country. In short, virtually every aspect of the U.S. immigration system is...