The United States is at a crossroads with border security. Attempts to reduce unauthorized migration through increased enforcement and new asylum restrictions have failed to sustainably control our nation's borders. Since 2014, a series of stopgap policies have resulted in cyclical crises that have strained American cities and reduced public trust in the immigration system. Despite attempts by three presidential administrations, our current system has proven incapable of efficiently screening and processing asylum seekers with a legal claim to stay in the United States and deporting migrants who lack a legal basis to stay. This system has forced American cities to manage the arrival of asylum seekers with limited federal support and made the United States dependent on other countries to manage our border in the face of record high global displacement. The U.S. Government's failure to modernize the asylum system and expand both temporary and permanent legal pathways to the United States has ensured that no President has the appropriate tools to secure the border.

Our nation's immigration laws have failed to keep up with the dramatic rise in global displacement. Americans deserve better.

FWD.us believes that U.S. policymakers need an ambitious, integrated policy response to the complicated drivers of unauthorized migration—one that does not merely react once people have reached our border, but instead addresses the forces and processes that draw people to the border in the first place. Unlike other major democracies facing the threat of population decline, the United States is in a fortunate position to benefit from the desire of so many immigrants seeking to live, find safety, or work in this country. Crafting solutions to reduce unauthorized migration by increasing legal channels for future migrants, modernizing asylum processing, and enhancing security operations along the border will give the United States the ability to harness the economic benefits of migration without the accompanying political backlash dividing communities at home and abroad.

The 2024 presidential election revealed immigration and border security to be decisive issues for the American electorate. Now policymakers in both parties have a choice: they can maintain the same failed policy frameworks of the past and rely on other countries to prevent the next border crisis, or they can choose to embrace and scale up modern, evidence-based policy interventions that are more effective at preventing unauthorized migration and increasing border security. If either political party hopes to truly secure the southern border, policymakers must widen the aperture of the current policy debate, learn from the past decade of policies that failed to manage unauthorized migration, and build political support for a more effective set of solutions that allows the United States to benefit from a modern immigration system.

A secure border should have the infrastructure and personnel capable of facilitating trade and travel, disrupting illegal smuggling activity, while also processing asylum seekers through an orderly appointment process. Until a new approach is taken, the sheer logistics of trying to manage increasingly high numbers of migrants at the border through outdated asylum processes and border infrastructure will break down our immigration system further, cause strain on receiving communities in the United States, and shrink the political space for much-needed reforms to the broader immigration system. Policymakers should consider the solutions outlined in this framework to finally build a system capable of relieving long-term pressure on the asylum system, reducing the number of unauthorized migrants at our southern border, and providing the government flexibility to respond to short-term migration emergencies.

This paper recommends a better way forward with six major policy interventions: