Terrified employees are not showing up to work. Children who are American citizens are being deported without due process. Crops are being left to rot because farms can’t find workers to pick them.
The Trump administration has claimed this is the price of a secure border. But Americans are no longer buying it. A record-high 79 percent of Americans now say immigration is a good thing for the country — a growing majority clearly believes U.S. policy should address immigration’s benefits, as well as its risks.
A balanced policy is possible. By the end of its time in office, the Biden administration had brought order to the border. In our new research paper, we examine the successes and shortcomings of Biden’s term, offering lessons for a more pragmatic migration policy — one that advances America’s broad range of economic, security and humanitarian interests.
We would be the first to acknowledge that the Biden administration’s response to record migration flows was imperfect. The administration was slow to support cities struggling with unprecedented migrant arrivals, ceded the narrative to its critics by playing defense on communications and waited too long to ramp up its enforcement efforts.
But by the end of 2024, total monthly encounters at the Southern border fell from a high of 300,000 to fewer than 100,000. In fact, the number of authorized encounters at ports of entry via programs, such as CBP One and the special program for for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, exceeded the number of unauthorized encounters.
Put another way, more than 80 percent of the current reduction we see in unauthorized border encounters occurred during the Biden administration. The Trump administration has reduced encounters from their prior levels by an additional 17 percent through costly and draconian measures.
The immigration lessons from Biden’s term are not always intuitive. First, enforcement and lawful pathways are not opposing strategies — they are interdependent. We have often heard the refrain of needing to crack down first, and only then consider expanding lawful pathways. But the data tells a different story. When the U.S. paired increased enforcement with credible legal alternatives, irregular crossings plummeted. It was this mix — not enforcement alone — that brought numbers down.
Second, emergency parole programs were a key, if imperfect, tool. Humanitarian parole, including the CHNV process, allowed people to apply from where they were, enabling vetted migrants to join the U.S. labor force quickly, helping avoid a post-pandemic recession.
That said, parole programs are not a durable solution. Congress must finally revisit decades-old visa caps and instead build a flexible and demand-driven approach that better matches migrants with labor needs across the skill spectrum.
Third, regional cooperation mattered more than most Americans realize. Countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru gave legal status to over 4.5 million displaced Venezuelans, preventing an even larger surge north. The U.S. backed those efforts with foreign assistance and diplomacy. It paid off, as fewer people were forced to keep moving.
It was far cheaper, too. Integration costs were estimated at $600 per migrant in Colombia, for instance, compared to the over $17,000 price tag to apprehend, detain and deport someone at the U.S. border. Western Hemisphere countries also worked together to increase migrant screening and vetting, coordinate on transit visa policies and investigate traffickers.
Migration diplomacy under the Biden administration was a two-way street, with the U.S. encouraging countries to do more but also providing foreign assistance and political cover. When we recognize that migration is a hemispheric challenge, not just a U.S. one, we get better results.
Finally, if we want to avoid the next migration surge, we need to understand what drove the last one. Yes, the Biden administration’s shift in tone influenced flows at the border. But the deeper drivers were structural: a post-pandemic labor market desperate for workers; Title 42 expulsions that perversely encouraged repeated crossings; and the largest displacement crisis in the hemisphere’s history, fueled mainly by Venezuela’s economic collapse.
Migration pressure doesn’t simply disappear — it builds up. By slashing foreign aid, abandoning multilateralism and pouring resources almost exclusively into border security and internal enforcement, the Trump administration has bet everything on deterrence. If these tactics merely delay rather than prevent a future crisis, the administration may wish it had more tools available to respond.
We share these lessons not to fight old battles but to shape a smarter way forward.
Last month, a bipartisan group of House members reintroduced the Dignity Act, coupling a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. with stronger enforcement. There’s a growing recognition in Congress that waiting for a “grand bargain” has become an excuse for doing nothing.
Narrow, targeted reforms — expediting work permits, closing asylum loopholes, expanding permanent and temporary lawful visas, creating a path to legal status for those who have lived here for many years, and promoting talent retention — are all achievable, necessary and in our national interest.
Three decades of stalemate have made clear that inaction on immigration carries immense costs. Those who believe in a better way must seize the opportunity to pursue pragmatic policies, whenever it emerges.
Marcela Escobari is senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings, where Alex Brockwehl is a visiting researcher.
