Comment by zahlman

> do you expect people across the border wait a decade to get their turn for an immigration interview only to be turned down

The backlog isn't a consequence of the law.

Is there a country that doesn't expect people to go through some kind of qualification process in order to immigrate legally? Here's what it looks like in Canada (where I live), for example: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... It's actually quite complex, and depends on additional provincial legislation. And then there's citizenship on top of that: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

> when they can just cross the border?

The entire point is that they legally in fact may not do so, and have only been doing so because of the lack of enforcement GP cites.

> When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law breakers.

We don't have nearly the same scale of problem in Canada. That probably has much more to do with only sharing an unsecured land border with a rich country.