SALT LAKE CITY — As the immigration debate has intensified, critics of immigrants in the country illegally have adopted a mantra — those wanting to come to the United States are welcome, if they do it the right way, adhering to U.S. law.
It irks South Salt Lake-based attorney Adam Crayk to no end.
“I’m so sick and tired of people in all of the trolling comments that we keep getting saying, ‘Just do it the right way. Just do it the right way. Just do it the right way,'” he said. “There is no ‘right way’ right now. It doesn’t exist. For someone who wakes up in Mexico and says, ‘Hey, I want to go to the United States,’ that doesn’t exist.”
It prompted Skyler Anderson, an immigration attorney in Taylorsville, to write a novel, “The Right Way,” that, as a blurb for the 2019 book puts it, takes aim at the “senseless complexities” of U.S. immigration law.
Indeed, amid surging deportations under President Donald Trump, Utah immigration attorneys say there are limited avenues for would-be immigrants to enter the country lawfully, notwithstanding illegal immigration foes’ contentions that they are OK with immigrants who follow the rules in coming to the United States.
While some harbor “this false impression” that there’s “a line” that would-be immigrants can get in to wait their turn to lawfully enter the United States, the reality, Anderson said, is that the options to legally migrate to the country are “extremely limited.”
“There’s not a single line to get into. There’s a number of different possible lines, and the vast majority of people don’t qualify to get into any of these lines,” he said.
In fact, he and South Jordan-based immigration attorney Carlos Trujillo maintain that the options to legally migrate to the country under Trump have actually declined. Trump’s administration has scaled back means of seeking political asylum in the country and phased out initiatives that have allowed some Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and others to be in the country.
On Sept. 19, Trump announced new guidelines requiring employers to pay $100,000 for each worker they want to hire under the H-1B program, geared to skilled immigrants.
Utah attorneys say legally immigrating to the United States can be difficult, impossible even for some. From left, attorneys Adam Crayk, Ysabel Lonazco and Carlos Trujillo. (Photo: Laura Seitz, Spenser Heaps, Deseret News; Tim Vandenack, KSL.com)
To be sure, critics maintain that the immigration initiatives targeted by Trump have been abused by his predecessors, most notably President Joe Biden. Trujillo, though, maintains that the overarching effect of Trump’s efforts is that legal migration is stymied, even as his supporters maintain that they favor lawful immigration.
“So when you say that you want people to do it the right way, but they don’t even respect the right way or they’re taking away or putting more obstacles in the right way, then what are we doing?” Trujillo said. “So what we see is that the attack on immigration is not just an attack here of deporting people that are illegal. Their attacks go further than that. They’re trying to impede legal migration as much as they can.”
‘A state of limbo’
Both the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a philanthropic organization focused on education, democracy and peace, and the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank, echo the laments of the Utah immigration attorneys.
An April 2025 report by Carnegie noted that as of 2024, nearly 35 million non-U.S. citizens had pending applications for green cards, or legal permanent residency status in the United States.
“But with the government capping the number of green cards it issues at a little more than 1 million per year, an overwhelming majority of applicants will have to wait years, if not decades, in a state of limbo. The wait for temporary, employment-based visas can be equally frustrating,” Carnegie said.
There really isn’t a way, under our immigration laws, for somebody to say, ‘Hey, I would like to seek a better life. I’m a hard-working person. I’m willing to pay taxes. I’m willing to be a good-behaved person. Where do I apply so that I can come to the U.S.?’ There is no such thing.–Immigration attorney Carlos Trujillo
In a 2023 report, Cato stated that only 1% of those seeking to come to the United States from abroad may do so legally, given the limited number of programs or “carve-outs” available to them.
“Many Americans have the false impression that these carve-outs are realistic options for potential immigrants to join American society, but the government’s restrictive criteria render the legal paths available only in the most extreme cases. Even when someone qualifies, annual immigration caps greatly delay and, more frequently, eliminate the immigrant’s chance to come to the United States,” Cato said.
Carnegie says the most common routes to legally migrate to the United States are through U.S. citizen family members or employers. Both mechanisms face limitations, and beyond those options, the possibilities are even more meager.
“There really isn’t a way under our immigration laws for somebody to say, ‘Hey, I would like to seek a better life. I’m a hard-working person. I’m willing to pay taxes. I’m willing to be a good-behaved person. Where do I apply so that I can come to the U.S.?’ There is no such thing,” Trujillo said. “You will have to be married (to a U.S. citizen). You will have to have a family petition done for you, either from a parent, a sibling or something like that, to be able to accomplish this, or an employer.”
Trujillo charges that even those tapping lawful means to remain in the United States have been swept up by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
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Despite the difficulties, West Valley immigration attorney Ysabel Lonazco advises immigrants should consult with an attorney if they’re unsure of their options to remain in the country. A legal expert may be able to discern options, including visas available to very select groups, that otherwise may not seem readily viable.
“People fail to understand the importance of an immigration attorney, especially nowadays. They think there’s only one or two ways to come, but there are so many types of visas,” Lonazco said.
Either way, she senses a resilience among immigrants, notwithstanding the current political climate and the alarm it has prompted among many.
“I don’t think immigrants are used to easy things. Nothing we have has ever … come easy to us. I think we know this. And I think immigrants are more than prepared to handle their hard path,” she said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.