Immigration remains among the most complicated and contentious issues our nation faces. Congress failed to act in a comprehensive manner last year, leaving the problem to worsen for everyone involved. It will not be solved by fences or walls and it won’t get fixed from the mean spirited rantings of Mitt Romney or Lou Dobbs. We’ll make progress when we look at what causes people to risk their lives and often leave their families in order to find work in the United States, and what their prospects are when they arrive.

Oppressive governments drive thousands to seek asylum here, but many of our underlying immigration issues are economic. Congress needs to look at a variety of failed economic policies, especially as they affect our own country and our nearest neighbors in Latin America. Free trade has too often shifted well paying jobs in the States to become poor paying jobs in other countries. As long as our own economic policies contribute to leaving millions destitute nearby, we have to expect some of those millions to seek jobs here.

And we need many of those workers. But how many remains a mystery because by keeping so many undocumented, we have created a huge underground economy. Businesses and governments may benefit from this situation, but it is not in the long term interest of our nation to leave millions living here without rights, often separated from their families and in poverty despite working long hours at dangerous jobs.

We need to stop considering providing legal status as amnesty. None of the proposals Congress has considered recently call for amnesty. They involve paying taxes, fines, steady employment and long waiting periods. Only when we allow these millions to come out of the darkness can we begin to seriously address our overall immigration policies and needs.

Then we can separate out those who are here for some criminal purpose. Then we can make sure that those working here are paid competitive wages and provided health care. Then we can collect Social Security and taxes from individuals and businesses to pay for the things we look to government to provide.

That’s also when we can begin to determine how many additional workers our economy needs, and we can permit people to enter the country properly documented with a clear road to citizenship when they choose it and when they’ve earned it.

John Reilly is the executive director of Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation.