Center for American Progress, By Marshall Fitz
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True immigration reform that deals practically and responsibly with the 11 million people living in the United States without immigration status has proven elusive over the past decade. Partisan gridlock has repeatedly prevented Congress from overhauling the immigration system. As a result, the only constants in our nation’s immigration policy during this period have been massive increases in border and interior enforcement efforts. These showed some results at the border but no tangible decline in the resident unauthorized population until the start of the Great Recession of 2007–2009, during which undocumented immigration slowed to a net zero, with slightly more people leaving the country than entering it.
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