We really should be taking and quarantining foreign travelers all the time. Look at the restrictions on moving pets and plants around - if we were half as careful with humans we'd be in a much better place.

Unfortunately Americans, the greatest pandemic host on the planet with only 5% of it's population, wouldn't accept such things because reasons. Mostly around freedumb and a MAGA hat wearing self declared cheerleader for money before people's lives.

@prometheus This is really about industry driving the program. They want a cheap and controllable workforce. On a PBS "To the Contrary" program it was shown that $100 million was given to ZPG and the Sierra Club to remove immigration from the population equation. SEIU is a major contributor to 'liberal' efforts to reduce punishments on illegal immigration.Instead of a wall the program E-Verify would do a lot to curb the illegal issue but it is often blocked from passage in some states. There was and still is a big push for an "open border" program.

@JackPedigo in aware that libertarians favour open boarders, but they seem to have zero influence about that in their host org, the GOP.

I do find it crazy that this country has so many millions of undocumented people - when you think about that there is basically zero chance of tracking even the existing population to safe guard is against COVID.

Unfortunately there are way too many paranoid people in the US - and with administration's like we've had in the last 20 years ago I start to sympathize with their paranoia. But ultimately we should just fix the government and get national ID and help ourselves. I guess the new Real ID is an attempt to move in that direction...

@prometheus There are a lot of things we need to do. Number one is to get rid of chain migration. A report once showed how 1 person was able to directly and indirectly sponsor 90 others. The other thing is to get rid of birthright citizenship. This program was started for a goal and that has been long since met. We are one of the few countries that use this. My late partner's son was doing some medical training in El Paso and he reported that we would not believe the number of women sneaking over the border to have their children born in the US. This program has been abused for years.
One thing we don't often hear (I did hear it once on NPR) is that people come here and go through a lot of trouble, expense and frustrations to get their citizen ships, legally. Afterward, they see people hiding out a few years and then getting amnesty. We are supposed to be a nation of laws but then break them for some industry self-interest. It is a slap in the face of our laws and those who follow them.
Open borders would be a nightmare for the whole country. It would decimate all our employee rights and create another tower of Babel for the country. History has shown that too much diversity in an area has caused cultures to implode. Even the fall of the Roman Empire was due to too many people from conquered ares coming to Rome for work and to live. It was simply more than the system could bear.