Illegal immigration is undeniably a problem for the U.S. Having a massive supply of below market (essentially indentured) labour is not productive in the long run, just look at how that's worked in places like South Africa.
But there is a larger problem with the
legal immigration system. US immigration favours family class immigrants over economic migrants. These are often uneducated, older people in poor health who immediately become a burden to the system. Meanwhile, international students who have earned degrees wanting to stay in the States and contribute to the economy are turned away. Politicians on both sides have done nothing to solve these issues in decades. Fareed Zakaria had a nice piece on this several years ago:
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Broken & Obsolete: An immigration deadlock makes the U.S. a second-rate nation
...Would you have guessed that Canada and Australia both have a higher percentage of foreign-born residents than the U.S.? In fact, in this respect, America—which once led the world—–increasingly looks like many other Western countries. France, Germany and the U.K. have only slightly fewer foreign-born residents than America (as a percentage of the population). And some of these countries have managed to take in immigrants mostly based on their skills, giving a big boost to their economies.
Canadian immigration policy is now centered on recruiting talented immigrants with abilities the country needs. Those individuals can apply for work visas themselves; they don’t even need to have an employer. The Canadian government awards points toward the visa, with extra points for science education, technical skills and work experience.
The results of the system are evident in Vancouver, where American high-–technology companies like Microsoft have large research laboratories and offices. The people working in these –offices are almost all foreign graduates of American universities who could not get work visas in the U.S. They moved a few hours north to Vancouver, where they live in a city much like those on the American West Coast. Except, of course, that they will pay taxes, file patents, make inventions and hire people in Canada.
Sixty-two percent of permanent-resident visas in Canada are based on skills, while the remainder are for family unification. In the U.S., the situation is almost exactly the reverse: two-thirds of America’s immigrants enter through family unification, while only 13% of green cards are granted because of talent, merit and work. And it’s actually gotten worse over time. The cap on applications for H1-B –visas (for highly skilled immigrants) has dropped in half over the past decade...
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