Pass One Immigration Bill Now - Forget About It for Decades

America doesn't pass immigration bills often. We get one shot every few decades, then live with the consequences for a generation. The 1924 Act lasted 41 years. The 1965 Act went 25 years before the next major reform. The 1990 Act has been the law of the land for 35 years now.

When we do pass these bills, they matter enormously - because they shape the country our children grow up in.

America's Immigration Cycle

The pattern is pretty straightforward when you look at the numbers:

The 1924 Immigration Act cut immigration dramatically. For the next four decades, levels stayed low, people assimilated, the middle class flourished, and the issue faded from political debate.

Then the 1965 Hart-Celler Act reopened the doors. The 1990 Act went further - raising caps, creating H-1B, and kicking off the largest wave of immigration in American history.

That was 35 years ago. Congress has tried to pass reform twice since then, in 2007 and 2013. Both failed. Meanwhile the 1990 Act keeps running on autopilot, admitting roughly a million people every year regardless of whether the country can absorb them.

It's time.

The Immigration Act of 2026

Pass the Immigration Act of 2026. One bill. Fix the problem. Then leave it alone for decades.

Core Provisions

Geographic Focus: Europe and South America

Immigration would be restricted to countries with cultural compatibility and manageable population sizes:

Eligible Regions:

• Europe - Shared cultural heritage, democratic values, similar economic development
• South America - Geographic proximity, Western hemisphere solidarity, established diaspora communities

Primary Pathways:

• Family Unification - Spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens only (no extended family chains)
• Exceptional Skills - Not mid-level software engineers. We're talking Nobel laureates, researchers doing work nobody else in the country can do. If you can't convince anyone that this person is irreplaceable among 330 million Americans, the answer is no.

No lottery systems. No unlimited chain migration. No corporate labor arbitrage through H-1B.

What This Achieves

Housing Markets Can Recover

This is basic supply and demand. When you add millions of people competing for the same housing stock, prices go up. MIT economist Albert Saiz found that an immigrant inflow equal to 1% of a city's population pushes rents up by about 1%. Doesn't sound like much until you realize we've been doing this every year for three decades.

Look at New York:

New York City Since the 1990 Immigration Act

Since the 1990 Immigration Act took effect, New York added 1 million foreign-born residents. In that same period:

• Median rent: +620% ($486 → $3,500)
• Median home price: +336% ($180K → $785K)
• Foreign-born share: +10 percentage points (28% → 38%)

Same story in Miami, LA, San Francisco, Houston. Every city that absorbed large numbers of immigrants saw the same thing happen to rents.

Cut immigration and the math reverses. Housing supply starts catching up. Young families can actually afford a home. Workers stop spending half their paycheck on rent.

Demographic Stability

People don't like watching their neighborhoods transform beyond recognition every ten years. That's not xenophobia - it's a normal human response. You want some continuity. You want your kids to grow up somewhere that feels like home.

Low immigration gives communities time to breathe. Schools can actually teach instead of running ESL triage. Social services work the way they're supposed to. People assimilate. That's what happened after 1924 and it can happen again.

Labor Market Balance

Who benefits from a million new workers every year? Corporations that want to pay less. Who loses? Every American worker competing for those same jobs.

This isn't complicated. When you flood the labor market, wages stagnate. When you tighten it, wages go up. After 1924, wages rose for 40 straight years. The American middle class was literally built during a period of near-zero immigration. That's not a coincidence.

The Visa Exception

Obviously, if there's a Nobel-caliber scientist or a critical defense researcher that we genuinely need, issue a visa. But that should be the exception - maybe a few thousand people a year, not a million. We don't need mass immigration to fill jobs. We need it to stop.

Who Does Immigration Policy Serve?

The test for any immigration policy is simple: does this help the people already living here?

Right now, the answer is no. Current policy serves companies that want cheaper workers and politicians who want bigger voter blocs. It doesn't serve the nurse in Ohio whose wages haven't moved in 20 years, or the couple in Phoenix who can't afford a starter home.

Flip the incentives. Dramatically lower numbers. Cultural compatibility. Critical skills only.

Pass It, Then Forget It

The whole point is that you do this once and walk away. Pass the bill. Cut immigration by 50%+. End H-1B. Focus on Europe and South America. Done.

History shows this works:

After 1924, immigration basically disappeared as a political issue for 40 years. Nobody was arguing about it because the problem was solved. The country assimilated its existing immigrants, the middle class expanded, and life went on.

That's the goal. Pass a strong bill, let things settle, and revisit in 30 years if anything actually changes. Until then, stop the constant debates. America has bigger problems to worry about.

Sources

Housing Impact Research

• IZA World of Labor: How Immigration Affects Housing Costs - Summary of Saiz research on immigration and housing rents

• Harvard JCHS: The Role of the Recent Immigrant Surge in Housing Costs (2024)

Immigration Statistics

• U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey (2023)

• DHS: Office of Immigration Statistics

Image Credit

• Photo by Caleb Perez on Unsplash