If you listen to most politicians — and all political pundits — they will tell you that immigration is one of the most divisive issues in American politics. But no one seems to have told the American people. For all the barbed rhetoric and partisan sniping, the public is consistently supportive of solving America’s immigration problems through practical, bipartisan compromise. 

The problems themselves are clear enough. An unprecedented number of asylum applicants have been arriving at the southern border. U.S. Border Patrol encountered more than 1.6 million in 2021, the most ever recorded in a given year.  

The number of border crossings has created a highly publicized humanitarian crisis, and a less understood administrative one. There are simply too many people for federal immigration agencies to handle with their current budgets and personnel. 

Meanwhile, there are thousands of U.S. communities, businesses, and institutions who depend on the contributions of Dreamers – whose status remains in limbo and hindering them from fully contributing.  

Dreamers have been working in our economy, contributing to our communities, and living in our society for years. Nearly one-fourth of Dreamers are now parents to U.S. citizens and 12 percent have a U.S. citizen spouse. Hundreds of thousands of them were children when they first arrived and have grown up as Americans — as part of our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces.  

Even immigration hardliners recognize the impracticality of “deporting” Dreamers from the only country they have ever known.  

Finally, the U.S. economy is still suffering from its own complications from COVID-19. The so-called “Great Resignation” has dramatically reduced our workforce, leading to breakdowns all along America’s supply chains, especially on our nation’s farms. The agricultural worker shortage is contributing to empty shelves, delayed deliveries, and the high prices we see today at grocery store checkout counters. 

What these facts show is that both sides in the immigration debate make good points. Also, that the contours of a bipartisan agreement are obvious to anyone who looks for them: more security resources on the border, an earned path forward for eligible Dreamers, and getting U.S. farms the workers they need. 

Such a compromise would quickly pay dividends across the country. It would be a win-win-win for both political parties, for the American people, and — according to public opinion surveys — especially for the leaders who get it done. 

When asked about these three solutions — enhanced border security, an earned pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children, and a modernized legal, guest worker program for agricultural workers, large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents support each. More than three-quarters of Americans favor a compromise including all three.  

Even larger majorities support additional requirements before Dreamers may earn long-term legal status — requiring clean criminal records and proficiency in English, for instance. What this shows is that while neither Republicans nor Democrats could pass a partisan immigration bill through Congress, there is room amidst the details for popular compromise. 

In fact, polling is so unequivocal that a cynic might wonder if the immigration debate has grown so vitriolic specifically so that the extremes might scare everyone away from doing what the public actually wants. After all, congressional gridlock may hurt the country, the border, the economy, and the rule of law. But it helps certain politicians demonize the other side while avoiding the accountability of actually governing. 

Americans are sick of this kind of politics. Both sides of the aisle are to blame for Congress’s abysmal approval rating. Yet despite that, more than two-thirds of the American people still want Congress to move on immigration before the November elections. 

The immigration reform Americans want and our economy needs is hiding in plain sight. There is plenty of time — and there are plenty of issues — for Republicans and Democrats to hammer each other between now and the midterms. But there is also plenty of time now for leaders on all sides of these immigration issues to find a workable compromise. 

Our immigration system is broken and while some have shown a willingness to discuss solutions, many more can contribute to the conversation by reaching out and working with congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle to move these practical solutions forward. 

From border states and farm states, from social justice liberals to law-and-order conservatives, all Americans will benefit from getting security at the border, fairness for eligible Dreamers, and a fully functioning agriculture industry.  

If Congress can be stirred to flex its atrophying legislative muscles, we might all remember America’s forgotten habit of principled cooperation. 

Ronnie Najarro is state director of Americans for Prosperity-Nevada. Eddie Diaz is strategic state director for The LIBRE Initiative-Nevada.