Those are incredible numbers. To ensure our long-term economic health; to remain globally competitive; and to replenish our aging workforce, we should offer a Permanent Resident Card (Green Card) to every international student who receives a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degree from an American university.

​

We’re just leaving money on the table if we don’t. Why in the world would we educate smart, talented people over here, then send them back home to use their skills and knowledge to compete with us? That makes zero sense.

​

This is an important move for many reasons, but a major one is that the National Foundation for American Policy warns that “without international students, the number of students pursuing graduate degrees (master’s and PhD) in fields such as computer science and electrical engineering would be small given the size of the U.S. economy.” They also warn – as the earlier studies we mentioned do – that “without continued net inflow of immigrants, the U.S. working-age population will shrink over the next two decades and by 2040, the United States will have over 6 million fewer working-age people than in 2022.”

​

“A shrinking working-age population can easily lead to economic stagnation or even falling living standards for a nation. A shrinking population means fewer people to generate new ideas that lead to technological progress and long-term growth. A shrinking population also means fewer workers to produce goods and services. When combined with an aging population that continues to demand labor-intensive goods and services, the result is likely to be price pressures and shortages.”

​

Not to mention the money the more than 1.1 million international students studying at our colleges and universities contribute to our economy – which was roughly $44 billion through tuition, room and board, transportation and other spending during the 2023-2024 school year. They also supported 378,175 jobs in the American economy.

​

NAFSA, a nonprofit dedicated to global education and exchange, says that declines in new international student enrollment and actions like visa bans and disruptions in admissions processing could result in almost $7 billion in lost revenue and over 60,000 fewer jobs.

​

In the 1787 plan, whatever visas we extend to international STEM graduates will go against the new yearly national limit we set for all immigration categories.

​

The number of these visas will obviously change every year but, as a reference, in the 2024-25 school year there were 1,177,766 students from abroad studying in our higher education institutions (488,481 of these were graduate students). Fifty-seven percent studied in the STEM fields, and math and computer science continued to increasingly be the leading field of study for these students.

​​

​

Step Two:
Implement a Common-Sense Plan for Unauthorized Immigrants

 

Can we please get real here?

 

During Donald Trump’s first term, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) combined carried out 287,093 removals in FY2017; 327,240 in FY2018; and 347,230 in FY2019. Republicans may be surprised (again) to learn that the 287,093 removals in FY2017 under President Trump were much lower than the removals in every single year of the Obama presidency, and the number of removals in FY2018 and FY2019 were lower than six of the eight years under President Obama. Also, most of Trump’s removals were people trying to get into the country, not people who were already here.

 

Cut to today.

 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that from President Trump’s second inauguration day to the end of December 2025, roughly 605,000 people had been deported.​ < Several nonprofits and news outlets report numbers lower than this. For example, the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent, nonpartisan research organization, points out that immigration judges issued around 500,000 removal orders in FY2025. This number tracks with numbers reported by The New York Times. >

​

Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also claimed that 1.9 million people voluntarily self-deported in 2025. < Although Secretary Noem name-dropped the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the agency itself never verified her figures. In August 2025, when her number was at 1.6 million, she cited a chart from the Center for Immigration Studies, but the Center was careful in their report to emphasize that their numbers were estimates. They pointed to several research limitations, including an absence of official government data and a potential unwillingness by immigrants to complete a survey in these volatile times. Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center and one of the report’s authors, told PolitiFact, “There is always some uncertainty in research of this kind, which we point out in our report.” He advised he would refer to the number as an estimate “based on the best data available.” >

​

Since we can’t imagine the Trump/Vance administration would lie about their deportation numbers – insert eye-roll emoji – we’ll use their number of 605,000 from January 20, 2025 to the end of the year (for the sake of math, let’s call it eleven months). Using those numbers, the Trump/Vance administration deported an average of 55,000 people a month in 2025. That’s a significant increase from the previous record held by President Obama who, in FY20212, deported an average of 34,154 people a month.

 

Okay, now let’s do some quick math.

 

The Pew Research Center estimates that the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population reached a record 14 million in 2023. So, using the Trump/Vance administration’s total 2025 numbers – 605,000 deportations and 1.9 million people who self-deported – the Trump/ Vance administration’s immigration policies successfully disposed of 18 percent of the “illegal” immigrants that plague America.

 

With all the drama, the angst, the terror… with the disruptions to the labor market and overall economy… 18 percent.

 

And here’s the problem for the administration: Even this pace is going to be very difficult to sustain for several reasons. In addition to legal and judicial challenges and domestic opposition, people can only self-deport once. PLUS, ICE has already picked the low-hanging fruit by targeting people who are relatively easy to find. PLUS, the number of people in detention is now over 70,000 and it’s already straining capacity to its limits. The administration has announced plans to increase capacity, but that takes time. < We're not exactly sure where this expansion plan stands anyway because, as of June 2026, ICE is reportedly planning to sell or just give away at least seven of the 11 warehouses it spent over $700 million on to detain migrants?!?).

​

But let’s be generous and say they do miraculously keep up and somehow meet their target of removing an average of 1,000,000 people a year. That’s 4,000,000 people. That’s only 29 percent of the “illegal” population.

 

With all the drama, the angst, the terror… with the disruptions to the labor market and overall economy… 29 percent.

 

This makes no sense. A policy of just throwing people out of the country is not a well-designed, effective policy. Millions of people are not going anywhere – that’s just a fact. Like it or not, that is the reality of our situation.

​

The bottom line is that we can’t fix our immigration situation unless we clear the deck. The best way – actually, the only way – to do this is to offer a one-shot deal (à la President Ronald Reagan) to every single unauthorized, non-criminal person who is already here.

 

Don’t freak out yet! Please just hear us out.

​

We are excited to introduce you to 1787’s common-sense plan for unauthorized immigration. It’s called the:

 

​

“Allow Millions of People to Pay Taxes

Since They Are in Our Country Anyway” Plan

 

In 1986, Congress passed – and President Reagan signed – the Immigration Reform and Control Act. This is a great template to use. If unauthorized immigrants can establish that they have resided in the U.S. for five continuous years, they will be granted temporary resident status. This status will allow previously unauthorized immigrants to live, work and travel in the United States legally. The status moves from temporary resident status to permanent residency status after eighteen months and then to citizenship five years later. 

​

Every person will undergo a thorough background check to identify any criminals to be deported (individuals with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors are ineligible for the program and will be deported right away). Those deemed eligible are required to register for military selective service and will be granted amnesty, which forgives their acts of illegal immigration and other related illegal acts such as driving and working with false documents.

​

Unlike Reagan’s 1986 plan, those granted temporary resident status will not be required to pay back taxes or pay any fines. These requirements are just not realistic. We’re not doing this for the fun of it; we are trying to solve a problem. We want people to take advantage of this program and most of them simply cannot afford back taxes and fines. For now, the only cost associated with the new status should be the actual cost involved to process the applications.

​

This offer is a one-shot deal. After we launch our “Allow Millions of People to Pay Taxes Since They Are in Our Country Anyway” plan, we will drastically crack down on any remaining undocumented people who live and work in this country, which will be much easier because there will be fewer people to deal with. Those who choose not to participate in the program will be deported immediately when identified, and they will never again be given the chance to receive legal status in America.  

​

Some people say President Reagan’s amnesty plan was a “magnet” that increased the number of undocumented workers. Critics of his plan say his actions led to the quadruple-the-size problem we face today. Their logic seems to be that Reagan’s decision made us look soft on undocumented workers and, therefore, enticed a brand-new wave of them to flood through our borders. 

​

Although the number of undocumented workers did significantly increase in the years after Reagan’s plan, it was not due to the amnesty component of the plan. The main flaw in the 1986 plan was this: Companies continued to hire undocumented workers and were not appropriately penalized. Simply put, the law was not enforced. 

​

After Reagan’s law passed, it quickly became clear that businesses had become dependent on migrant labor and continued to have a huge appetite for undocumented workers and their low pay scale.

​

Unfortunately – and for a variety of reasons, including lobbying by powerful industries like hospitality, agriculture, and construction – law enforcement on every level chose to look the other way. Basically 2.9 million unauthorized immigrants were granted amnesty without a serious plan to stop history from repeating itself. That cannot – and will not – happen again.

 

See, you read that without having a heart attack! That wasn’t so hard!

​

​

Step Three:
Implement Other Common-Sense Measures

 

It’s critical we don’t get into this position again and we need to take extensive measures to ensure that we won’t. To that end, we will implement strict prevention mechanisms – including harsh financial fines on employers who employ unauthorized immigrants – and a smart, comprehensive border security strategy.

​

The 1787 plan also includes things like establishing a hard-core vetting process to identify unauthorized individuals with convictions for a felony and/or three misdemeanors; investing in a biometric entry-exit tracking system; passing a federal mandate requiring all states to use E-Verify; and reforming our overwhelmed immigration courts.​​​

​

We recognize unauthorized immigration remains one of our country’s most heated issues and that some of the ideas we just put forward are particularly flammable. But sometimes we are confronted with a problem that has no great solution. So, we simply must do the best we can under extremely challenging circumstances.

​

So often, when controversial topics are raised, our deeply ingrained, robotic reflexes kick in and inhibit the constructive, open-minded conversations that are essential to finding creative, sustainable solutions. We need to fight against this instinct here.

​

With issues like immigration, alternatives that get us the biggest bang for our buck – things like offering financial and governance assistance to countries destabilized by violence and poverty and, as a result, improving the lives of people within their own countries – are key to our success.

 

Oh boy! Now people may actually have a heart attack! : )

 

We can practically hear the outrage this idea is causing throughout some MAGA circles. Those knee-jerk reactions are kicking in so fast people are practically tripping over themselves. Why in the world would we give money to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala when we have tons of our own troubles over here? We’ve got our own problems, crazy liberal people!

​

That argument is certainly valid, but think about it: At a time when the number of Central Americans trying to cross our southwest border was increasing, at least partially because of turbulent conditions in their own countries, was it smart to cut their foreign aid?  …which only makes the problem in those countries worse?  … which will eventually surely send even more people our way (after all, Donald Trump won’t be president forever). Does that make sense to you?

 

#TheButterflyEffect

 

Have you ever asked yourself why we don’t we have immigration issues with Canada? Canadians just sit up there, calmly behaving themselves.

​

Easy answer: Unlike Mexico, 36 percent of the Canadian population doesn’t live in poverty. One thing is for certain, if a poorer country with willing, cheap labor borders a richer country that provides a market for that labor, workers will try to cross the border eventually. And that extends to countries south of Mexico. It’s just that simple.

​

Typically, if jobs are available, workers will try to come fill them. If jobs aren’t, workers stay home. It’s certainly no coincidence that apprehensions at our border declined significantly in 2007 – the very same year the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis hit the United States. We seem to forget that, even though living in America is wonderful, many of those who cross the border would likely prefer to create a comfortable life in their own countries, with their own families.

​

This approach would not only slow the flow of immigrants coming to America – helping untangle things at the border and strengthening our national security – but we would also reap countless benefits of being deeply surrounded by stronger, more stable economies.

 

This idea is not just about immigrants coming into America. It’s also about stabilizing countries around us – and neighborly compassion.

 

The most concerning part of the climbing migration numbers during the Biden administration was the substantial increase in the number of families and unaccompanied children crossing our southern border – which meant that more and more children were being put in significant danger to travel to the United States. < In FY2021, there were 478,492 Individuals in a Family Unit (FMUA) and 146,054 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC). >

​

One of the main drivers behind this was how lucrative of an industry it had become. The business of moving people north – particularly through the Darién Gap, the only land route from South America to the United States – had become a modern-day Gold Rush.

​

For decades, this unforgiving, arduous terrain acted as a natural barrier between North and South America, but then “entrepreneurs” made this dangerous, dense jungle passable, providing boat rides, camps, porters, guides, restaurants, and even all-inclusive packages to make the entire experience easier. “Like a ticket to Disney,” one Venezuelan construction worker told The New York Times. When you imagine migrants being “smuggled” into the United States, you may picture old-school, thuggish “coyotes” hiding people in the bottoms of battered trucks or walking them through the hot desert or across rapid rivers or helping them creep through secret tunnels. But that’s no longer the case.

​

In 2023, 520,085 people crossed through the Darién Gap, shattering 2022’s record of 250,000. The New York Times reported in 2023 that the people shepherding migrants through the dangerous jungle were “politicians, prominent businessmen and elected leaders, now sending thousands of migrants toward the United States in plain sight each day – and charging millions of dollars a month for the privilege… today, that profit is greater than ever, with local leaders collecting tens of millions of dollars this year alone from migrants in an enormous people-moving operation – one that international experts say is more sophisticated than anything they have seen.”

​

One of the things, among many, that made this so dangerous was that the Gaitanist Army of Colombia (EGC), often called the Gulf Clan – an uber powerful drug-trafficking group – essentially ruled the Urabá region of Antioquia, which includes the entrance to the jungle… to such an extent that the Colombian government considered the Gulf Clan to have “criminal governance” over the area. Colombian President Gustavo Petro estimated that the group was earning $30 million a year or more from the migration business alone.

​

In April 2023, the United States, Colombia, and Panama signed an agreement to “end the illicit movement of people” through the Darién Gap, a practice that they warned “leads to death and exploitation of vulnerable people for significant profit.”

​

These are the types or deals and relationships that we should be focusing on. Solutions that kill one, two or three birds with one stone. For one, we desperately need the support of Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro now that we have invaded Venezuela (a fact that we wish President Trump had the foresight to realize before he called President Petro a “lunatic who has many mental problems” and “an illegal drug leader” two months before the Venezuela raid).

​

< In December 2025, the U.S. classified the Gaitanist Army of Colombia a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). While this designation could help authorities unravel the EGC’s financial structure, experts say it may threaten the ongoing peace talks in Qatar between the EGC and the Colombian government that started in September 2025. >

​

All we're saying is that it’s never a bad idea to at least consider adventurous alternatives as opposed to consistently going back to ideas that were lame in the first place. Just consider Donald Trump’s beloved “Wall.” Let’s be real, even if you’re all in on “The Wall,” you must admit that it wasn’t that difficult to dream up. That concept is one of the first things preschool kids figure out with their Legos.

​

But even beyond that, Donald Trump’s version of “The Wall” in his first term was ridiculous in its ineffectiveness. During his first administration, we spent billions and billions and billions on just 458 miles of this damn thing, never mind that smugglers repeatedly cut through it with a basic saw that you can buy at Walmart. < By the way, only 52 miles of this were new primary border barriers… the rest were replacements of old, dilapidated barriers. >

​

In fact, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that The Washington Post demanded under the Freedom of Information Act, as of March 2022 the fragments of “The Wall” built during that time had been breached by Mexican smugglers 3,272 times over the previous three years. In fact, we Americans had to pay $2.6 million just to repair the various breaches. < That’s another thing! Remember when Donald repeatedly told us that it didn’t really matter how much his “Wall” cost because Mexico was going to pay for it. ¡Gracias México! Oh, wait… they didn’t? >

​

Not to mention the construction was just shoddy. At one point, engineers noticed that a section of “The Wall” that was meant to be a “showcase” model for future projects – built for $42 million by a private company that had been awarded around $1.7 billion in federal contracts for border wall construction – had erosion at its base and may very well fall into the Rio Grande River.

​

Better still, this particular “Wall” design required hundreds of storm gates be installed to prevent flash floods from literally knocking it over. Because of weather patterns, these storm gates must be left open for practically the entire summer, which kind of defeats the purpose, don’t ya think?

​

A 2020 joint ProPublica/Texas Tribune review of federal spending data showed that “more than 200 contract modifications, at times awarded within just weeks or months after the original contracts, increased the cost of Trump’s border wall project by billions of dollars” over the previous three years.

​

“The cost of supplemental agreements and change orders alone – at least $2.9 billion – represented about a quarter of all the money awarded and more than what Congress originally appropriated for wall construction in each of the last three years… Experts say the frequent use of so-called supplemental agreements to add work or increase the price has amounted to giving no-bid contracts to a small group of pre-selected construction firms, many with executives who have donated to Trump or other Republicans.”

​

In the end, Donald’s Swiss cheese of a “Wall” ended up costing about “five times more per mile than fencing built under the Bush and Obama administrations.”

​

The Government Accountability Office saw this coming before the “Wall” construction even began: “Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to spend billions of dollars developing and deploying new barriers along the southwest border. However, by proceeding without key information on cost, acquisition baselines, and the contributions of previous barrier and technology deployments, DHS faces an increased risk that the Border Wall System Program will cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or not fully perform as expected.”

​

A billion here, a billion there. It’s beyond insane we let them get away with this year after year. This nation has got to learn that just because our leaders approve the money for their next great idea, we’re not suddenly on the fast track to resolution. In fact, it usually means just the opposite. Throwing good money after bad is a habit this country can no longer afford.