This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, January 30, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The White House plan to reform our immigration system would result in dramatically less immigration, 22 million people over five decades.

That from Cato Institute immigration policy analyst David Beer, the costs would hit both families of would be

immigrants and the US economy. We spoke yesterday. When I hear some people, some of

them relatives of mine talk about immigration. They suggest that for people who want to come to the United States to work, to live, not necessarily even become citizens, that they should get in line.

Well first when I talk to those people I'm skeptical that they know exactly what is involved

in getting in line or what line they're actually trying to refer to.

So can you help some of those people understand what it means to get in line to receive some status as an immigrant to the United States?

In order to immigrate to the United States, generally you don't get in line, whoever is sponsoring you for the visa or the green

card as we call it which is permanent residency in the United States

must submit a petition on your behalf to the federal government and so all of the process starts with the sponsor in

the United States and so if you are not a family member of a US only option, if you don't have U.S. family here.

Really your only option then is to get an employer to sponsor you and there are all sorts of regulatory hurdles that employers

have to overcome in order to be able to do that.

But even taking into those into account those hurdles, there are only 5,000 visas made available to people without a college degree who want to immigrate based on employment to the

country. So 5,000 visas a year compared to the population of unauthorized immigrants, which is estimated to be about 11 million people in the country illegally.

So really the opportunities to immigrate are so narrow for people without U.S. family

that it's very difficult for them to immigrate and even the people who do have US family it can

take many years for them to obtain permanent residency because we limit the

number of visas issued to family members of US citizens.

So you estimate that the White House plan, and it is you note that it is rather vague, would ban 22 million people who otherwise

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