The best first step for Biden-era immigration reform

Our current immigration system is frozen in time. The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, the mostrecent comprehensive reform bill, proposes to update the system. However, the bill does very little to ensure that updates made now will keep pace with future immigration needs. To ensure our immigration laws continue to evolve, legislators should instead focus on the National Office of New Americans Act, a bill that would establish a federal agency responsible in part for periodically evaluating immigration laws and policies and recommending changes.

Bi partisan comprehensive immigration reform has escaped lawmakers for decades.The last major reform was under the Reagan administration in the 1980s, although later Congresses passed a few smaller bills. More comprehensive reform bills proposed in 2001, 2006, 2007 and 2013 failed, mostly due to partisan roadblocks.

Partisanship could still block the muchneeded yet highly contentious U.S. Citizenship Act. Even if the current Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress support the bill, 10 Republican votes are necessary to overcome the Senate filibuster. Many pro-immigration Republicans have left the Senate. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers express doubts about passing comprehensive reform. Rather, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle suggest smaller, more targeted legislation is more likely to pass.

Even if the U.S. Citizenship Act passes, immigration needs may change. The bill solves today’s problems, but it does not necessarily solve immigration problems 30 years from now. If political parties are as divisive as they are now, the same gridlock that prevented earlier reform bills could well prevent necessary updates to the bill itself in the future.

The National Office of New Americans Act shows more potential to shift our immigration system from stagnant to adaptable. Amid all the other immigration reform, little attention has been paid to the proposed bill.

The bill would establish the National Office of New Americans within the Executive Office of the President to promote the social, cultural, economic and civic inclusion of immigrants and refugees in the United States. The office would examine the quality, effectiveness and impact of both new and existing immigration policies affecting nearly all aspects of immigrant life, including English language learning, education, workforce training, health care, naturalization, civic engagement, legal services and more. The legislation requires the office to publish reports on its findings and recommendations every two years, which Congress and the president can rely on for evidence-based targeted reform.

The National Office of New Americans Act is just the type of targeted legislation that Republicans and Democrats indicated would stand a better chance of enactment. The bill would only establish a single agency to evaluate and recommend changes to current immigration policies. This lays the foundation for presumably easier, step-wise reform rather than a hard-fought and contentious large-scale overhaul. At least seven states and approximately 30 cities have created similar agencies, “demonstrat[ing] the value of a more active public policy approach,” says the National Skills Coalition, a national organization advocating for programs that enhance workforce skills to improve lives and businesses.

The bill would establish an agency devoted to continuously evaluating the immigration system and guide legislators on how they can ensure the system evolves with changing immigration needs. The agency’s reports and recommendations would provide a basis for legislators to draft piecemeal legislative reform with a greater likelihood of receiving bipartisan support. If lawmakers ignore the agency’s reports, they will likely face political consequences for ignoring evidence-based advice on how to improve the system. This provides some assurance that lawmakers will act on the office’s recommendations.

It would be worthwhile for Congress to first pass the National Office of New Americans Act to ensure any updates enacted by the U.S. Citizenship Act remain responsive to changing immigration needs for future generations. Updates to our immigration system are long overdue, but prioritizing the U.S. Citizenship Act above all other avenues of reform may place future Americans in the same position we are in today — stuck in an outdated immigration system.