Solution to U.S. border woes no secret: Washington Post

NEW YORK, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Illegal immigration from Mexico has rebounded following a decade and a half of shrinking numbers, raising anew the perennial, vexing question about the U.S. response: no fix so far although the way to fix is widely known, reported The Washington Post on Thursday.

"The American political class -- Democrats and Republicans -- has ducked behind a wildly unrealistic promise to seal the border and stop would-be immigrants on the other side. Immigrants, understandably, have refused to comply," said the report.

After years of failed attempts to regulate the issue, U.S. voters' confidence in the immigration system collapsed. And border enforcement -- hundreds of miles of fencing, drones, sensors and a border patrol that has swelled to some 20,000 agents from about 5,000 in the mid-1990s -- was left as the only tool to manage migration flows, according to the report.

"Of course, the political class's main problem in resolving the challenge of illegal immigration is that voters mistrust both immigrants and the employers that would like to hire them," it said.

Meanwhile, many Americans without a college degree perceive immigration as an existential threat, and proposals to open a broad legal path for more immigrants to live and work temporarily in the United States are hotly contested, it added.