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Castle Rock, Colo. – Catherine waited in Colombia for nine years before her immigration application was approved, allowing her to join her brothers and sisters in the United States. Two years later, she said she is still waiting for her husband to be allowed to join her in her new home in Colorado.
She gets upset when she thinks about the tens of thousands of people flooding across the southern border every month who didn’t wait like she did.
“If you try to do [it] In the right way you need to wait a long time. You have to pay fees,” she said Fox News Digital. “And some people just cross the border for free and that’s it.”
“It’s a shame that we have illegal immigrants here that are being cut to the front of the line and not going through this process,” Castle Rock Councilman and State Ambassador Max Brooks, a Republican, told Fox News Digital Town.
Migrants seeking asylum in the United States are silhouetted as they wait at a border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, on January 18, 2025, in Southwest border crossings, which reached previous highs of 1.6 million in 1986 and 2000, then have shrunk to a decade-long debt low of about 304,000 in fiscal 2017, began to rise again during Trump’s first term, then skyrocketed to new highs during the Biden administration. (Reuters/Jorge Duenes)
Illegal immigration is among the political issues that led to President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election. Trump vowed in his starting address Monday to “end catch-and-release practices,” and he signed executive actions in one day that included an order authorizing the military to create a “border sealing” plan and another ending the use of the CBP One Process Migrants application.
Trump’s attention turned to Colorado after a viral video showed alleged gun-toting Venezuelan migrants inside Apartment complex Aurora.
Ahead of Inauguration Day, Fox News Digital spoke with Catherine and her sister Zully at Castlecity about 30 miles south of Denver, on immigration and Trump’s deportation plans. Both agreed that the country needs strict border security.
“Although most people come with the intention of working, helping the city grow, and growing personally, there are many who come through who are not good people,” Zully said. She added that it is important that immigrants “receive an education in civil culture so that we all behave as we should.”
Zully and Catherine felt that the wave of illegal border crossings had slowed down the process of legal immigrants.
But David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, pushed back on the idea that illegal immigrants have an impact on wait times for legal immigrants, because Customs and Border Protection does not process immigration applications.
“It’s managed by a separate agency,” he said. “So if someone crosses the border illegally, it’s not going to directly affect anyone in the legal immigration system trying to go through the legal process.”
Bier also argued that delays plaguing the system, caps on green cards and tight eligibility limits make legal immigration “almost impossible.”
“It’s a guilty until proven innocent system. And the only way you can prove your innocence or immigration eligibility is if you fall into very narrow exceptions,” he said.
Green cards for spouses and children of lawful permanent residents used to be “instant,” but now took years, said Zully, who immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia. “It’s frustrating because the immigration processes have become much longer,” she said. (Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi/Fox News Digital)
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US law currently allows officials to grant up to 675,000 permanent immigrant visas in certain categories each year, according to American Immigration Council. Priority is given to non-relatives of US citizens (no green card restrictions for spouses, parents or adult children) and relatives of lawful permanent residents. Skilled workers, highly educated individuals, and “persons of extraordinary ability” in the arts, sciences, athletics, or other fields may also qualify.
“The exceptions are so narrow that really only about 3% of all people who tried to immigrate legally last year actually got a green card and were able to become a legal permanent resident,” Bier said.
He said efforts to strengthen border security would be less likely to deter illegal immigration than addressing the incentives — primarily economic — to enter the U.S.
“The benefits of coming to the United States are enormous,” Bier said. “You can make it more expensive for people to get in, but as long as benefits continue to increase, you’re going to see people pay more, find ways around any restrictions imposed, and lead to more chaos and disruption at our borders.”
Bier argued that removing or increasing immigration restrictions and making it easier for employers to sponsor workers “will improve a significant portion of the problems we face at the border.”
“When I talk to border patrol agents, they really want people who are coming for peaceful reasons, for work or reunification purposes, to check in at the consulate so we can focus on our job of securing the border from threats, criminals and other people we want to keep out. our country,” he said.
Border Patrol agents search migrants in March 2024, near Jacumba Hot Springs, California. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
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Meanwhile, in Colorado, state ambassador Brooks said he would support a “fast-track system” for processing illegal immigrants who want to become legal residents, but would need to leave the country to go through the process.
“Get them back south across the border and start the paperwork if they want to naturalize,” he said. “But right now, if you’re an illegal migrant in this country, you have to be removed.”
