| America’s broken immigration system has spawned a national fight, but Congress lacks the political will to fix it.  Photograph by John Francis Peters for The New Yorker Congress hasn’t passed a meaningful overhaul to the nation’s immigration system since 1986, despite the fact that everyone—representatives of both parties in Washington, successive Presidential Administrations, federal and local agencies, and activists on all sides of the issue—agrees that it has long been unworkable. And yet, as Dexter Filkins writes in his sobering and richly detailed report from the southern border, the outline of a political solution is obvious. “In principle, a legislative compromise on immigration is not difficult to imagine: tougher security on the border, a Republican priority, in exchange for expanded legal immigration, a Democratic priority,” he writes. “But the prospect of a deal has dissolved in the mutual hostility that typifies congressional politics.” In the absence of meaningful reform, the burden of a disjointed and often unjust set of laws has fallen on the people ensnared in the system: migrants who take immense physical and financial risks to cross the border, overburdened law-enforcement agents pulled in several different directions, and communities that struggle to welcome new members with little outside guidance or support. It’s a picture of a problem more complex than anyone seems willing to admit. Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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