Our immigration system itself is really not very different from those in other developed countries, it is simply that more immigrants come to the US than any other country by a huge margin, the US-Mexico corridor is the most active venue for illegal immigration in the world, and we pay very little in taxes so prospective immigrants have to bear greater financial burden to come here, by comparison due to government agencies being routinely underfunded.

If anything the requirements to come to America are less onerous than other developed countries, and we really do not enforce immigration law that stringently, although it has been getting more attention under Trump than it ever did while Obama was deporting large amounts of people.

You could lower the standards, but then you run the risk of greater burdens on an already overtaxed social services system, and processing would take longer. You could lower processing time by admitting fewer immigrants through raised standards, but I doubt many liberals want to turn away more immigrants.

The idea of immigration being a "broken system" has become more talking point than fact. No one ever seems to really be able to explain exactly why it is "broken" when asked. Not too surprising, it is a very complex issue. You hear talk about people waiting years and years for naturalization, but those are outliers and those people are still living here legally in the meantime.

Here's the thing about overburdening our social services: we don't have to provide them to new residents. I believe unemployment benefits between states are similar: you can't pay into CA's system, then move to Oregon and collect OR benefits. Absent legal barriers, people will immigrate if they can afford to (as they already do), kinda like people who migrate within the U.S. And as the Great Recession showed, if it no longer makes economic sense they will leave.

What about people dying in the streets and starving children? That may be awful, but it's already happening outside our borders. I would love to find a way to provide a safety net to anyone who comes here, but at the very least I think it's more humane to give them the chance to make a better life.

And that, to me, is why the entire way we think about immigration is "broken." (Current) Americans don't have the right to restrict newcomers from other countries, any more than we restrict movement between the states. It's an artificial system meant to restrict competition and preserve the dominant culture.