ICE must be dissolved as an agency and immigration enforcement should be returned to the jusidiction of the DOJ. The entire DHS should be removed as it is a redundant agency that was created following 9/11 and has done nothing but consume taxpayer dollars as well as kidnap, terrorize and kill US citizens. No agency that does this is capable of reform and it must be dissolved. The weakness of Democratic leadership, namely Schumer & Jeffries, to not use the leverage of Government Funding to demand a dissolution of ICE shows their inability to defend their Democratic constituents. We must have new leadership in Congress.

Additionally, the entire immigration system needs to be reconfigured. Unfortunately, there are 2 giant forces constantly lobbying to prevent any real reform. The first are corporations who exploit undocumented workers. The second are US companies, mainly tech, who exploit H1B visa employees.

The work-visa program unfortunatley includes many cases where an employer abuses workers knowing they can't fight back because getting fired means losing their visa. Generally, these immigrant workers are paid less than what an American would be paid for the same work, they do not have the same rights or protections as other workers, and are not adequately protected by workers’ compensation laws. Many of these companies preferentially employ foreign workers in order to keep salaries low and prevent any unionization efforts that could lead to better compensation or working conditions. Even worse, neither of these situations provides a real path to citizenship. This system negatively affects both immigrants and Americans while benefiting only the corporations.

I also want to see foreign students who graduate from a US college or university receive a work visa stapled to their diploma. It’s nearly impossible right now for a well educated student visa graduate to find an employer willing to pay the government & legal fees necessary to sponsor them for a work visa. Making this process easy will encourage the best and brightest not only to study in the United States but also to build their inventions here, do groundbreaking research here, save lives in the healthcare field here, or any number of contributions we would all benefit from.

There is also a huge backlog of visa applications cases from several countries due to immigration quotas, leading to extensive waiting periods of a decade or more. This is why we must pass a comprehensive immigration reform plan that addresses all these issues as soon as possible.

We should continue to accept asylum seekers and refugees as well. We also need to address the shortage of qualified immigration judges so that we can evaluate asylum claims promptly. I often think about the quote on the Statue of Liberty - one my grandfather saw when he arrived as an immigrant on Ellis Island - which reads “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”. This is the spirit of America I grew up believing in.

Finally, we must pass legislation that allows all DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival) recipients to immediately become full US citizens. These are people who were brought to this country as children. They had no choice if they wanted to come here and no choice in how they entered the US. DACA recipients have spent their whole lives in the US. They have grown up here, worked & paid taxes here, fallen in love and started families here. This is the only country they've ever known and they want to be able to proudly say "I'm an American citizen". Let's give them that chance.