American immigration policy should serve the interests of America and Americans. That sounds obvious. It ought to be the starting point rather than the end of debates. After all, one can build the case for many different immigration policies from that premise. Maybe we need immigrants to compensate for declining birth rates. Or maybe our workers already face too much competition for jobs. Maybe immigrants bring valuable skills, drive, and perspective. Or maybe we already have too many poorly assimilated foreign-born residents. Each case can proceed from the premise that what matters is what benefits the country and the people already in it.
But this is not the premise of two major areas of our immigration law as they exist today: asylum and refugee law and Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Each is grounded in humanitarian concern for the interests of potential immigrants, with little thought for American interests. Each functions in ways disconnected from how it was designed and written in law. Each should be rethought and either reformed or abolished.
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