America cannot just deport its way out of its immigration mess 

The Constitution requires the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” But many Americans do not want the Immigration and Nationality Act’s enforcement provisions to be faithfully executed. They prefer the policies of the previous administration. Instead of following the deportable alien provisions in the law, the Biden administration focused, to the exclusion of others, on aliens “who pose a threat to national security, public safety, and border security and thus threaten America’s well-being.”

The current administration has rejected such guidelines in favor of executing the deportation provisions in the statute more broadly. This makes every immigrant present in the U.S. unlawfully subject to deportation, which, according to a recent poll, is only supported by 32 percent of adult Americans.  

It will never be possible to remove every immigrant who does not have lawful status. However, the size of the unlawful population can be reduced to a more manageable level that makes prompt removal proceedings and asylum hearings possible. 

No one really knows how big the unlawful population is, and the available estimates aren’t very reliable. But the consequences of having an excessively large unlawful population are well apparent. 

Through the end of February, the immigration courts had a backlog of 3.3 million cases. And even with much slower inward flows over the border, they have not made much progress in reducing that backlog. The immigration court system has received 202,000 new cases in fiscal 2026 and completed just 334,000 cases. At this rate, it will only diminish the backlog by 316,990 cases by the end of........

© The Hill