Biden got immigration wrong. But there's something both parties can agree on: more immigration judges.
is a senior writer at Future Perfect, Vox's effective altruism-inspired section on the world's biggest challenges. She explores wide-ranging topics like climate change, artificial intelligence, vaccine development, and factory farms, and also writes the Future Perfect newsletter. Hundreds of people protest the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and recent Columbia graduate who played a role in pro-Palestinian protests at the university on March 12 in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images What should America's immigration policy be? This story was first featured in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here to explore the big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them. Sent twice a week. All the while, Vice President JD Vance posts on X that we cannot afford to worry about "due process." Yes, he put a foundational constitutional right in scare quotes because of the necessity of deporting the alleged 20 million people who came to the US illegally under Joe Biden. Although these claims that Biden let in tens of millions of people are popular on the right, there are literally no credible estimates to suggest that 20 million immigrants, legal or not, entered under his tenure. Most credible estimates are that between 4 million and 6 million people entered the US illegally during the Biden administration, and 8 million total. In the face of all that, it feels futile to try to outline what our approach to immigration should be. Any immigration policy at all that obeys the Constitution would be an improvement over the current situation. Every single one of the things I mentioned above is wildly underwater in the polls, but voters still tend to support Trump's handling of immigration overall. That suggests Democrats have a serious challenge: They need to communicate immigration policies to voters that are a clear break from Biden's approach. His expansion of temporary protected status and the increase…