Thread by @David_J_Bier

Out today, I provide an overview of suggested reforms for the major components of the immigration system. I provide detailed citations for how to make the reforms to the statutes. Congress shouldn't wait to take up reform next year cato.org/publications/e…

Here is my list of 52 specific ideas to vastly improve America's immigration system. Of course, much more should and can be done. But these are my priorities.

Congress should start with the premise that the U.S. permanent immigration system is very restrictive compared both with other wealthy countries among which it ranks in the bottom third for foreign born share and compared to its own history.

My principle for immigration enforcement is simple: identifying with the goal of correcting, not merely punishing, the violation will produce much greater compliance with the law overall.

America should create a permanent status for all illegal immigrants in the country now so it can build a new system that works without the burdens and failures of the old one undermining it. But it should allow immigrants to choose a simple status or onerous path to citizenship

While reducing violations of the law is an important reason to favor more legal immigration, that is not the purpose of the system. The ultimate purpose is to expand the freedom to associate, contract, and trade with people from around the world in many ways

That said, allowing a lot more guest workers from Mexico has greatly reduced illegal immigration, and we should continue to pursue this policy aggressively with Central America.

Of all the border issues, asylum is the one that is most important today, and there is an easy answer to guarantee that violations of the law almost disappear.

For refugees, the most important issue is that the law gives almost all power to the president, and very little power to individuals. Allow private sponsorship outside of any numerical limits.

The family-sponsored system is barely functioning mostly because the way the caps are structured. Reforming the caps and exempting spouses and children would reunite families and provide long-term stability for these important programs

For work-based skilled, permanent immigration, the most important issue is that the United States allows almost none compared to other OECD countries. The U.S. is losing talent to competitors because it makes it almost impossible to get permanent residence as a skilled worker.

Given the massive economic gains, Congress should eliminate both the overall caps on skilled immigration and the country caps, which impose unfair and economically harmful national origin discrimination onto a merit‐​based system.

If it doesn't get rid of all caps, it should reform them, again by exempting them and making them respond to economic growth of the United States over time.

The other most important issues are that the US treats temporary foreign workers in skilled positions very poorly relative to other countries.

States and localities need to have a role in setting the terms of entry to fill in gaps that the federal system overlooks. This is a major reason why local problems develop into national crises

Finally, Congress needs to aggressively act to stop the president or executive agencies from undermining or limiting legal immigration in the future. The president shouldn't get to just ban all immigrants for any reason that he likes. We need mechanisms to enforce this