don't split up families. This isn't partisan. Republican and Dem administrations for decades didn't do that.

But we also need comprehensive immigration reform, and unlike health care, there are numerous areas on which real policy people in both parties agree. It's just that the current administration is run by Steve Miller and similar tiki-torchers, so there aren't any policy folks in the entire Executive Branch.

Let's start with the idiocy of a wall. Yes, in more heavily populated areas, you need physical barriers. But think about how dumb a wall is. The vast majority of people coming over can just stroll across from Juarez to El Paso to shop for the day, and disappear. The idea of physically preventing anyone from coming in is just ridiculous. Are we going to cut off trade? (Oh, wait, bad example). How about students? People can get in, period. And ironically, if we did ever have a super-strong wall for 2,200 miles, wannabe immigrants would probably figure out that there are easier, less costly, less dangerous ways of coming in. Talk about unintended consequences. The wall is analogous to how Dems thought campaign finance reform would stop the flow of money. It just forced it into another direction, and the big donors found it's even easier (with less transparency and accountability) to channel money through IEs.

So how to stop illegal immigration? The first step is the easiest one: enact and enforce a robust e-verify program. If people can't work without having legal status, you've already stopped a big source of immigration. Of course, we'll find out that we don't like the extra $10/night for hotels or 50% markups on all our veggies, so we'll have to expand at least a guest worker program, and probably increase permanent resident status as well. Prices will go up with legal migrant work, but not nearly as much as if we have to rely on citizens alone (with unemployment near 4%, wages and costs would skyrocket absent an expanded legal immigration system).

Give all the folks hoo have been here the opportunity to prove that they're not criminals and to get work permits for a start, but have them wait until those hoo have applied from their home countries get green cards or citizenship before offering either to those hoo are here. Figure out a back tax structure (although most undocumented workers put in far more than they get out via employment taxes and GRT/sales/property taxes). Bring everyone out of the shadows, which is good for immigrants AND citizen workers. The black market in labor drives down wages and benefits (which is one of the main reasons most of the GOP has opposed real reform). And having big underground societies provides gangs limitless opportunities for extortion, trafficking, drug dealing, and other awful blots on our society.

As for asylum seekers, live up to our law. We have pretty strict standards to prove that your life is in danger. 20 years ago I spent months helping a Montenegran Muslim get asylum, and had to submit about 400 pages of documents and evidence, some general, some specific to my client's case, showing that he'd almost certainly face death if returned to Serbia (which was with Montenegro at the time).

There was a program instituted towards the end of the Obama years (I think that was the timing), where asylum seekers were released into the country with ankle bracelets and close tracking/communications. ICE reported something like a 99.8% success rate in having them show up for their court hearings. Trump ended that incredibly effective program--which didn't require $700/night/person to lock up asylum-seekers.

There are dozens of other major ideas for stopping or slowing asylum applications, too, like fixing our counterproductive war on drugs that funds so much of the gang activity in Mexico and Central America. Or taking a tiny piece of our military budget and re-directing it towards establishing and strengthening core institutions in crime- and poverty-ravaged countries. Oh, and we might not want to slash taxes for the rich by $1.5 Trillion, so we can afford some things that actually benefit our security.

Most all of these ideas have had strong bipartisan support in the past. But Trump's GOP isn't interested in policy solutions, or effective solutions, or saving money, or treating victims of brutal civil wars and gang violence like humans. At least that's the Trump GOP's approach for non-white humans. But hey, Norwegians and Slovenian strippers, we could use some of them, right?