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A deep dive into the growing uncertainty in the U.S. legal immigration system, exploring policy shifts, backlogs, and how procedural instability is reshaping the promise of lawful immigration.
Getty Images, Halfpoint Images
When Immigration Rules Keep Changing, the System Stops Working
Mar 23, 2026
For generations, the United States has framed legal immigration as a kind of social contract. Since 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act ended the national-origin quota system, the U.S. has formally opened legal immigration to people from around the world without racial or national-origin preferences. If people from across the globe sought to reunite with family or bring needed skills to the American economy, they were told they would be welcomed. If they sought U.S. citizenship, the country would provide a clear route to reach it.
Follow the procedures, submit the forms, pay the fees, pass the background checks, and your time will come. Legal immigration has never been easy or quick. But the promise has always been that the path exists.
For decades, that process has been central to the country’s immigration narrative. The paperwork is complex, the wait is long, and the costs can be substantial, but the underlying premise has been simple. Follow the rules and the system will eventually produce an answer.
Increasingly, that premise is breaking down.
Across multiple visa categories and legal statuses, immigrants who have spent years navigating the formal process are finding themselves caught in an environment of shifting policies, administrative pauses, reversals, and uncertainty. The problem is no longer just that the process is slow. Instead, the process itself is becoming opaque.
For many applicants, the financial commitment alone is substantial. Filing fees, required medical exams, document translations, and legal assistance can easily exceed $5,000 over the course of an application. Families often structure their lives around these timelines. Job offers, housing decisions, schooling for children, and long-term financial planning are frequently tied to expected milestones in the immigration process.
When those milestones suddenly move or disappear, the consequences ripple outward.
Part of the challenge is sheer scale. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services currently carries a backlog of more than 8 million pending cases across the immigration system. Even when policies are stable, that backlog means applicants often wait years for decisions on visas, work authorization, and green card petitions.
But the backlog alone does not explain the growing uncertainty. In recent months, policy shifts and administrative pauses have created additional instability for people already navigating the legal process.
One example came in December when the State Department paused visa processing for applicants from dozens of countries. The pause was presented as a security review, but for families and employers already waiting in line, it created immediate uncertainty. Applicants who had already submitted paperwork, paid fees, and waited months for interviews suddenly found themselves stuck without any clear timeline for when the process would resume.
For many applicants already inside the system, the most immediate impact is the loss of the ability to work legally. When immigration processing pauses or policies change midstream, employment authorization tied to those applications often lapses while cases remain unresolved. People who followed the rules, paid the required fees, and maintained a valid status can suddenly find themselves unable to continue working in jobs they already hold, whether running a small business, repairing cars, or writing software, simply because the process they relied on has stalled.
The consequences are not abstract. Families who have structured their lives around the expectation of lawful employment can lose their primary source of income overnight. Rent, mortgages, and school tuition do not pause simply because an immigration application does. Employers face sudden disruptions as well, losing workers they have already hired and trained, even though the underlying immigration case is still pending.
For the people involved, it surely feels like the rules changed halfway through the process, because they did. They entered the system under one set of expectations, complied with every requirement, and waited in line as instructed. Then the process stopped moving.
In this environment, even basic questions become difficult to answer. Can someone continue working while waiting for a decision? Should a family keep paying legal fees to pursue an application if the policy framework may shift again? Is a delay temporary, or does it signal a deeper structural change in the program itself? And these days, if someone seeking permanent resident status makes the wrong decision on any of these - whether due to acts of omission or commission - it can result in the family members being placed on an ICE list of people targeted for deportation.
But the broader issue is institutional credibility.
A functioning system requires more than rules written on paper. It requires confidence that those rules will remain stable long enough for participants to act on them. When the framework shifts repeatedly, sometimes affecting people who have already invested years and resources in the process, it creates the perception that compliance offers no clear advantage. If individuals follow established procedures, the institutions administering those procedures will behave in a consistent and predictable way. When that expectation erodes, participation itself becomes riskier. Applicants begin to wonder whether the rules they follow today will still apply tomorrow.
None of this means immigration policy cannot change. Democracies revise laws and regulations in response to elections, court decisions, and evolving public priorities. Immigration policy in particular has always reflected political debate about how many newcomers the country should admit and under what conditions.
But there is an important difference between policy change and procedural instability.
Policy change establishes new rules going forward. Procedural instability alters the environment for people who are already in the system, often after they have invested significant time, money, and personal planning in reliance on the existing framework.
The result is a system that begins to resemble a moving target rather than a structured queue.
At a moment when immigration remains deeply contentious in American politics, restoring clarity to legal pathways would serve multiple purposes. Supporters of immigration reform often argue that expanding lawful avenues reduces pressure on unauthorized migration. Critics frequently emphasize the importance of enforcing existing rules.
Both arguments depend on the same foundation. A legal process must function consistently enough for people to trust it.
Without that consistency, the debate risks losing a critical distinction between lawful participation and rule breaking. When the system itself becomes unpredictable, the promise that following the rules will lead where you want them to begins to lose meaning.
Once that promise weakens, rebuilding confidence in the system becomes far more difficult than maintaining it in the first place. Or perhaps an uneven system with stops and starts that frustrates the people in it so much that they no longer want to be here is an intentional message being sent by those in charge.
Brent McKenzie is a writer and educator based in the United States. He is the creator of Idiots & Charlatans, a watchdog-style website focused on democratic values and climate change. He previously taught in Brussels and has spent the majority of his professional career in educational publishing.
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Travelers wait in a TSA Pre security line at Miami International Airport on March 17, 2026, in Miami, Florida. Travelers across the country are enduring long airport security lines as a partial federal government shutdown affects the Transportation Security Administration officers working the security lines.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images/TCA)
A New Norm of DHS Shutdown & Long Airport Lines
Mar 22, 2026
If you’ve ever traveled to France, chances are you’ve come up against this all-too-common phenomenon. You get to the train station and, without warning, your train is out of service. Or a restaurant is oddly closed during regular business hours.
“C’est la grève,” you may hear from a local, accompanied by a shrug. It’s the strike.
There’s a joke in France about their time-honored tradition of labor protests: A tourist asks a waiter what the signs are about at a protest across the street. The waiter hardly looks up and simply says, “Thursday.”
Strikes, protests, work stoppages and closures are so frequent in France, there are multiple apps and websites devoted to letting locals and tourists alike know what will be open and what will be closed, and those in the know check daily.
A strike today at schools in Dijon, Lyon and Rennes; an ongoing transport strike in Rouen; closures at the Louvre. One site promises: “Thanks to our service, unexpected problems are a thing of the past. You’ll no longer be stuck waiting for your train, and you can plan a backup solution!”
Americans may hear this and smugly scoff at a society that’s turned such dysfunction into a revered art form. But our pride is increasingly undeserved.
Last week I flew between Newark and Austin. As you may have seen on the news, the security lines were hours long and, in some cases, snaked out the airport doors and onto the street.
This wasn’t because of a protest or a strike, however, but yet another government shutdown, the third in just six months.
Starting in October last year and lasting for 43 days, we endured the longest shutdown in U.S. history due to an impasse over Affordable Care Act subsidies. Then, earlier this year, a partial shutdown over delays in a funding package linked to immigration. And now, going on more than a month, we’re in another partial shutdown over Department of Homeland Security funding.
The shutdown has meant about 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers have been working without pay. Many have picked up second jobs, while others are calling in sick and more than 300 have simply quit.
Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl says we’re rapidly approaching a breaking point:
“If the call rate does climb,” he said of agents calling out of work, “there could be scenarios where we may have to shut down airports. This is a serious situation.”
You’d think Congress would want to fix this quickly in an election year, but all evidence to the contrary. Republicans and Democrats remain in a stalemate over DHS funding, with both parties blaming each other and using strikingly similar language to do so.
“Democrats need to end their political posturing, stop using our TSA agents as political pawns, and fully fund DHS,” said Sen. Katie Britt.
Sen. Raphael Warnock said, “I think it’s simply wrong for my Republican colleagues to use these hard-working Americans as leverage, as pawns, in what they are presenting as a false choice to the American people.”
But while both parties finger-point, all the average American sees is a dysfunctional government getting more dysfunctional by the day, with basic pursuits — like air travel — feeling more like capricious and unreliable luxuries.
While inching through security in Austin, someone asked me what the lines were about. “The shutdown,” I said. He didn’t even know we were in one again.
We deserve better from our government. But if this is just our new normal — where on any given day we’re left wondering what parts of our government are open and running — we may, like the French, need to get ourselves an app for that.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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US Capitol
Constitutional Barriers to Nationalizing Elections
Mar 21, 2026
In the run-up to the midterms, President Trump continues to call for nationalizing congressional elections. He has sought to initiate the process through executive orders, such as one proposing to set “a ballot receipt deadline of Election Day for all methods of voting.” The words and spirit of the United States Constitution—the bedrock textualism and originalism of conservative constitutional interpretation—say he can’t nationalize elections.
Unlike some consequential constitutional questions, it’s not a close call.
The Constitution’s framers and ratifiers weighed the idea and firmly rejected it. For example, Pennsylvania arch-nationalist Gouverneur Morris was appalled that his state did not impose minimum property-ownership qualifications for voting. As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, he pressed for their imposition nationwide for congressional elections. Morris drew James Madison into his camp but failed to persuade many others, leaving a notable paper trail of his failure.
The Virginia Plan, which served as a starting point for the convention’s deliberations, did not include qualifications for suffrage. But, as the delegates worked through its various provisions, one of them suggested adding property-ownership requirements for members of Congress. Morris proposed instead imposing them on voters. “If qualifications are proper,” Madison reports Morris saying, “he would prefer them in the electors rather than the elected.” Although several delegates objected, Morris managed to have the issue of nationalizing congressional elections referred to a committee charged with drafting a constitution from the various resolutions passed by delegates for their final consideration.
Reflecting Morris’s concerns, the drafting committee’s records include debate over a proposal that the qualifications of voters would be the same nationally with regard to citizenship, manhood, sanity of mind, and possession of real property. At the time, ten of the thirteen states imposed property-ownership qualifications for voting in their legislatures. Most of these states imposed lower qualifications for elections to their assemblies or larger branches and higher qualifications for elections to their senates or upper chambers. No state allowed enslaved people to vote, and three southern states barred free Blacks from voting. Only New Jersey then allowed women to vote, but only single women could satisfy the state’s property-ownership requirement.
Rather than accept Morris’s proposal to impose uniform national qualifications for voting in congressional elections, the committee took the opposite approach. In all states, the first article of the committee’s draft states, the qualification of the electors for congressional elections “shall be the same … as those of the electors [for] the most numerous branch of their own legislatures.” In other words, in any state, those eligible to vote in elections for the state’s assembly could also vote in federal elections. This provision clearly and expressly left the matter to the states.
When this provision reached the full convention for consideration, Morris moved to strike it in favor of empowering Congress to set uniform national voting standards for federal elections. Madison and Delaware’s John Dickinson backed Morris’s motion, but a rising chorus of delegates from right, left, and center spoke against it.
Pennsylvania’s representative on the committee, the scholarly conservative James Wilson, reportedly declared, “This part of the Report was well considered by the Committee, and he did not think it could be changed for the better.” Virginia libertarian George Mason warned, “A power to alter the qualifications would be a dangerous power in the hands of [Congress].” Benjamin Franklin added that he did not think “the elected had any right in any case to narrow the privileges of the electors.”
Ultimately, only one state, Dickinson’s Delaware, supported Morris’s motion, and the final Constitution retained language virtually identical to the committee’s draft. Delegates then added a further clause to the Constitution expressly entrusting the time, place, and manner of holding congressional elections to the states, subject only to subsequent regulation by Congress. There is thus no express role for the president in congressional elections, let alone a grant of power for the president to act unilaterally.
The issue of national authority over congressional elections resurfaced during the ratification debates. Federalists assured supporters of states’ rights that the Constitution reserved such matters to the states. Even Madison followed the party line. In the Federalist Papers, he writes that nationalizing voting rights, “to have reduced the different qualifications in the different states to one uniform rule, would probably have been as dissatisfactory to some of the states, as it would have been difficult to the convention.” Responding to states-rights advocates at the Virginia Ratifying Conventions regarding the authority of Congress to regulate the time, place, and manner of voting, he added that such control “will very probably never be exercised.”
Following these clear constitutional strictures, subsequent nationalizing mandates on voting in federal elections have required either constitutional amendments or valid legislation. One bar states from restricting suffrage on account of race. Another does so on account of sex. A separate constitutional amendment prohibits states from imposing poll taxes in federal elections. Another provides that states may not bar persons age 18 or older from voting on the basis of age. Congress, meanwhile, has passed legislation governing the timing and manner of voting, such as setting a uniform date for congressional elections.
All of this makes one thing abundantly clear: under any mode of constitutional interpretation, presidents may not unilaterally impose their will on congressional elections. Absent express constitutional amendments or legislation on specific issues, the states run the show. Should the states or courts allow President Trump to usurp this central pillar of American federalism, elections will become yet another example of how the Constitution isn’t working.
Edward J. Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning legal historian.
William Cooper is the author of How America Works … And Why It Doesn’t.
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Smoke billows after overnight airstrikes on oil depots on March 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran.
(Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
Unpacking War Powers in the U.S.-Iran Conflict: Who Decides When America Goes to War?
Mar 21, 2026
What Is The War Powers Resolution of 1973?
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a law enacted by Congress that limits the U.S. president’s ability to wage or escalate military operations overseas. Passed on November 7, 1973 amid the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution reasserts Congress’ constitutional power “to declare war” and “to raise and support Armies.” A key provision of the War Powers Resolution requires the president to submit a report to Congress within 48 hours of military deployment in the absence of an official declaration of war by Congress detailing:
- The circumstances requiring U.S. forces;
- The constitutional or legislative justification for the president’s actions;
- The estimated duration of U.S. involvement in the hostilities.
If Congress does not formally declare war or enact special authorization for continuation of the U.S’ involvement in a conflict within 60 days of the report’s submission, the president must withdraw U.S. troops from the hostilities. If Congress does declare war, the president is instructed under the War Powers Resolution to report to Congress periodically on the status of the hostilities no less than once every 6 months.
Since becoming law in response to President Richard Nixon’s secret bombing campaign aimed at North Vietnamese supply routes in Cambodia, the War Powers Resolution has been applied several times with varying levels of compliance from sitting presidents. Following the Mayagüez Incident (1975), President Gerald Ford abided by the Resolution with his submitting a report to Congress, while President George H.W Bush launched Operation Desert Storm in 1991 only after Congress passed the Iraq Resolution. Both the Clinton administration and the Obama administration violated the Resolution, letting U.S involvement in The Kosovo Conflict (1999) and The Libya Intervention (2011) continue past 60 days without congressional approval. Most recently, members of Congress have sought to invoke the War Powers Resolution following President Donald J. Trump’s decision to approve U.S. air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June of last year and U.S. air strikes on Venezuela in early January that preceded the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Both measures to pass resolutions curtailing President Trump’s power failed to receive majority support in the House and the Senate.
What’s Happening in Iran?
On February 28th, the U.S. and Israel launched air attacks on Iran in what President Trump deemed as an effort to “defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime” in a Truth Social post. With the strikes killing Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran pledged a severe response, going on to fire drones and missiles at Gulf countries with American military bases like Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The ongoing conflict, which the White House now calls Operation Epic Fury, has seen the deaths of 7 American service members and more than 1,000 people in Iran and the cancellations of more than 20,000 flights that were supposed to fly to or from the Middle East.
Why Did Lawmakers Want to Force a Vote?
After the U.S.-Iran conflict began, members of Congress vowed to force a vote on war powers resolutions that would prevent President Trump from taking further action in Iran without congressional approval. And although members of Congress were briefed by top national security advisors three days after the initial attack, some lawmakers remained concerned about the lack of an exit strategy and pushed for a vote. In the Senate, the war powers measure failed in a 47-53 vote, and in the House, by a 212-219 vote.
Who Supported the Vote?
Prior to failing in both the House and the Senate, lawmakers from both political parties had spoken out in favor of passing a war powers resolution, with some lawmakers calling the U.S.-led attacks on Iran “illegal and unconstitutional.” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) asserted that it was the president’s obligation under the Constitution to ask Congress for permission to use military force. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) affirmed that the Iran situation lacked the “exigent circumstances” that would have allowed the president to act without congressional approval. Across the aisle, House Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) tweeted that the U.S.-Iran War was not in-line with Trump’s “America First” agenda as he joined Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) in forcing a vote in the House.
Who Opposed the Vote?
Prominent lawmakers like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) opposed a vote on a war powers resolution, stating that President Trump was within his Article II, Section II constitutional powers as commander-in-chief to direct the military to carry out the attack. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) also opposed the vote and argued that President Trump’s actions were meant to “settle the account with the Iranian regime.” In addition, Senator John Curtis (R-Utah) believed a war powers resolution would stop the president from being able to “cut off a threat before it becomes imminent.” One of the only Democratic voices to oppose the vote was Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), who supported the president’s actions as a matter of global security.
What Are the Future Implications?
With both the House and the Senate failing to pass a war powers resolution that would have reinstated Congress’s power to declare war, the U.S.-Iran War is expected to continue, with President Trump projecting that the conflict could last four-to-five weeks.
Already, the impacts of the war have been felt worldwide, as QatarEnergy has halted production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) after being targeted by Iranian missiles which has caused European natural gas prices to surge by 40%. In the United States, gas prices jumped by 11 cents overnight, the largest one-day increase since 2022.
If Congress decides to revisit the War Powers Resolution amid the U.S.-Iran War and rein in President Trump’s military power, it is likely that President Trump would veto a bipartisan resolution, thus forcing Congress to accrue the two-thirds votes in the House and the Senate necessary to override it. The War Powers Resolution could also be challenged in court. While the Supreme Court has historically declined to rule on the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution, its enforceability remains on uncertain legal ground.
Unpacking War Powers in the U.S.-Iran Conflict: Who Decides When America Goes to War? was first published on The Alliance for Citizen Engagement and was republished with permission.
Stephanie Peterson is a senior at Purdue University Northwest.
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