Beyond Borders: Unraveling the Complex Web of U.S. Immigration Policy

Let’s take a step back and follow the thread, because the debate about immigration in the United States too often misses the bigger picture. The presence of 11 million unauthorized immigrants isn’t the result of a single administration, a single policy, or even a single border crisis. It’s the product of decades of economic shifts, political choices, and policy failures—on both sides of the border.

Let’s start with the root causes, because people don’t uproot their lives and leave their families for no reason. Migration from Mexico and Central America didn’t just happen. It was pushed—by economic instability, collapsing rural economies, political violence, and, increasingly, climate change. And many of these forces were shaped, in no small part, by U.S. policies.

Take NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 1994, it was sold as a deal that would modernize Mexico’s economy, bringing prosperity through free markets and open trade. What it actually did was flood Mexico with subsidized U.S. agricultural products, driving millions of small farmers out of business. With no way to compete, many left their land—some moving to Mexico’s cities, others heading north to the U.S., looking for the work that had disappeared from their communities.

And then there’s the role of neoliberal economic policies—the idea that if you privatize industries, cut government support, and let the free market work its magic, prosperity will trickle down. What actually happened in Mexico and much of Latin America was that local industries collapsed, inequality grew, and public services eroded. When people had nowhere left to turn, many migrated. Others—particularly in rural areas—found another path: drug cultivation and smuggling. Because while NAFTA was bringing cheap U.S. corn into Mexico, it was also exporting demand for drugs. Cartels filled the economic vacuum left by failing rural economies, offering farmers a way to survive—just not in the legal economy.

Now, let’s turn the lens back to the U.S. side. Because here’s where things get really perverse: While economic policies created the very conditions that pushed migration, U.S. immigration policy remained stuck in the past. The demand for labor—especially in agriculture, construction, and food processing—continued to grow, but the legal immigration system didn’t adjust. Quotas remained arbitrary, visa programs outdated. The result? A system that makes legal immigration impossible for many, but necessary for the economy. So people kept coming, but outside legal channels.

Instead of addressing this mismatch, policymakers took an easier route: militarize the border. And this is where things go from bad to tragic. Because since the 1990s, the U.S. government hasn’t just ramped up border enforcement—it’s weaponized geography.

It started with a policy called “Prevention Through Deterrence,” the idea that if you make the border crossing difficult enough, people will stop coming. Walls went up in urban areas, forcing migrants into the most desolate, dangerous parts of the desert. The thinking was that the natural environment itself—the heat, the lack of water—would become the enforcement mechanism.

And what happened? People died. A lot of people. Thousands of migrants—men, women, children—have perished in the Sonoran Desert and along the Rio Grande. Bodies are found in the sand, in dried-up riverbeds, in remote canyons. The policy was designed to deter, but instead, it created a death zone. Some scholars call this a “necrostate”—where the state doesn’t kill people directly, but lets the landscape do the job.

And yet, people still come. Because when the choice is between staying in poverty or danger and risking everything for a better future, people will take the risk. And so, migration continues, and politicians—rather than addressing the root causes—fall back on the same tired playbook: scapegoat the migrants.

And let’s be very clear about that scapegoating. The claim that immigrants are “taking American jobs” isn’t just wrong—it’s deliberately misleading. Because here’s what the research actually shows:

1. Most undocumented immigrants work in jobs Americans won’t take, at wages that wouldn’t sustain most U.S. workers.

2. They contribute to the economy—paying taxes, starting businesses, filling critical labor shortages.

3. The real cause of wage stagnation isn’t immigration—it’s corporate practices, deunionization, and automation.

But that’s not a convenient political message. So instead, we get the usual fearmongering: talk of invasions, criminals, murderers, rapists—a narrative that has been used over and over again in American history. The Irish were called “drunkards and criminals.” Italians were accused of bringing the mafia. Chinese immigrants were branded as an economic threat. And now, the same script is playing out with Latinos.

But here’s something worth noting: When you look at the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., nearly half didn’t cross the border illegally—they came legally, on visas, and overstayed. That includes Canadians and Europeans, but no one is calling for mass deportations of them. The reality is, this is about race, not law and order.

And at the end of the day, this isn’t really a crisis of immigration—it’s a crisis of policy failure. The U.S. economy relies on immigrant labor, but the system criminalizes the very people it depends on. It creates illegality, then uses that illegality to justify inaction.

So the real question isn’t, “How do we stop migration?” The real question is: Are we ready to have a serious conversation about fixing a system that is broken by design? Or will we keep doing what we’ve done for decades—ignoring the root causes, militarizing the border, letting people die in the desert, and blaming immigrants for the failures of our own policies?

That’s the choice in front of us. And it’s long past time we made the right one.