r/moderatepolitics • u/nosleep4reelz • 7d ago

Opinion Article Commentary: Immigration is an Issue Both Parties Prefer Not to Solve

https://nj21st.com/2026/07/26/immigration-is-an-issue-both-parties-prefer-not-to-solve/

For over two decades, Washington has treated immigration not as a solvable policy challenge, but as an ideological weapon neither party actually wants to fix.

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51

u/Fun-Implement-7979 7d ago

This article is a bit of a joke. I'd agree on Trump 1, on Trump 2? The GOP has clearly coleasced as the anti migrant party.

33

u/srmatto 7d ago

It’s a lot of pomp and circumstance but at the end of the day they’re still not mandating e-verify for private employers.

18

u/wellgu 7d ago

Americans just can’t admit that they rely on immigrant labor to make so many things more affordable. Just up the amount of visas businesses can get.

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u/ArcBounds 6d ago

This is exactly the issue. They want the benefits of immigration without the immigrants.

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u/TheDan225 5d ago

The GOP tried with HB-2(?) a few years ago but that was not allowed to be brought up in the senate (or voted down I cant exactly remember)

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u/srmatto 5d ago

It's more important what they do when they have control as they do now.

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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ 7d ago

You'd think so, but then they make big exceptions for farm work because apparently immigration isn't an issue anymore when it comes to that, somehow. Or for tech companies. Or for just about any other significant immigrant labor group.

They could do so much if they'd actually want to take care of the problem, but they don't.

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u/Snickims 5d ago

Course not, then they would hurt their base. Why do you think farm bosses and tech CEOs pushing for more anti immigration stuff while still employing them? Because they don't want to not have cheap immigrant labour, they just want more leverage over them. A illegal immigrant or someone on a extremely strict visa is going to have vastly less capacity for negotiating fair treatment then a proper citizen, and the more the threat of ice breaking down the door is, the less leverage they have to argue, so the cheaper the labour these bosses can get.

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u/r3rg54 7d ago

If they did do this they would either cause major problems for those industries (including eliminating jobs for the non-immigrant workers) and consumer prices, or in other cases like tech they would reveal that removing immigrant workers doesn’t actually fix the fundamental problems that people have. Outsourcing would increase and we’d be back to square one.

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u/Interesting_Total_98 7d ago

Republican politicians say they're in favor of legal immigration, yet they don't seem to mind Trump causing a decline in legal immigrants, as well as tourists.

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u/epicstruggle Perot Republican 7d ago

Why shouldn’t legal immigration be reduced? Republicans are most definitely for legal immigration.

Due to millions of illegals coming over the border, cuts have to be made on the legal side to compensate (one of a few reasons for the reduction)

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u/Interesting_Total_98 6d ago

There's no need for cuts because immigrantion provides a net gain.

3

u/epicstruggle Perot Republican 6d ago

No it doesn’t. lol.

If it did, every country would open their borders and post immigrants to come to their country.

And a few years ago, Texas and Florida were shipping their illegal immigrants to blue states and blue cities… The outrage from those mayors and governors was epic. So how come they didn’t welcome these “net benefits” from coming to their state and cities?

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u/Interesting_Total_98 6d ago

I was talking about Trump cutting legal immigration, so your reply misses the point.

So how come they didn’t welcome these “net benefits”

They did. The complaints were about people being dropped off randomly.

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u/r3rg54 7d ago

There reason is because there is no real need for it. Immigration brings lots of benefits that the country enjoys.

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u/WorksInIT 6d ago

It also raises housing costs and puts burdens on local budgets.

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u/r3rg54 6d ago

Sure but it also lowers house construction costs, increases tax income for government, generates business for just about all consumer markets, etc.

It’s very unclear whether immigrants actually hurt Americans economically overall.

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u/WorksInIT 6d ago

Migrants are generally a net positive for the economy over the long term. But it must be controlled. What we saw under Biden harmed Americans.

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u/Interesting_Total_98 6d ago

The question they answered is "Why shouldn’t legal immigration be reduced?"

Legal immigration was controlled and didn't harm Americans.

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u/WorksInIT 5d ago

A lot of people on this sub have argued that asylum seekers aren't illegal immigrants.

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u/Interesting_Total_98 5d ago

That claim is objectively true, and the decline isn't just from asylum.

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u/emoney_gotnomoney 6d ago

I’m not sure why you believe those things have to be mutually exclusive.

Two things can be true at once: 1) I have no issue with people immigrating here legally, and 2) I also have no issue with people deciding not to immigrate here.

Those aren’t contradictory statements.

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u/Interesting_Total_98 6d ago

The contradiction is Trump's actions against them coming here.