America is once again staring tragedy in the face, and once again pretending it is an unforeseeable fluke rather than the direct consequence of a hopelessly broken immigration system. The rampage in Washington, DC last Wednesday by Afghan “refugee” Rahmanullah Lakanwal should shock the nation not only because of the horror itself, but because it exposes how catastrophically unserious the United States has become about safeguarding its borders, its legal processes, and ultimately, its people. If this brutal episode does not force a fundamental overhaul of U.S. immigration laws—top to bottom—then nothing will.

The details of Lakanwal’s vetting, or lack of it, are almost beside the point. The deeper danger is that America no longer has anything resembling a rational, cohesive immigration system. What we have instead is a chaotic latticework of programs—special immigrant visas, humanitarian parole, asylum channels, “temporary” protections, employment visas, student visas, refugee pipelines—each governed by different rules, different standards, and different political agendas. It is a patchwork born not of vision but of improvisation, political horse-trading and bureaucratic inertia.

And that patchwork is failing catastrophically.

Lakanwal, who reportedly worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, appears to have entered under one of the “special immigrant visa” (SIV) programs created during America’s chaotic withdrawal. But this is just one tributary in a sprawling river of entry pathways. Every new crisis, every diplomatic embarrassment, every ideological pressure campaign results in yet another visa category, another parole program, another exception—rather than any serious attempt to redesign the system on coherent principles.

Thus we end up with a nation that can, incredibly, admit individuals who pose a risk to public safety while simultaneously blocking highly skilled, law-abiding applicants who would enrich the country economically and socially. The United States welcomes some of the very people it should keep out and forces out or shuts out many of the people it desperately needs.

That is not a functioning immigration system. It is an ongoing national self-sabotage.

For decades the foundation of American immigration law has been built on a backward principle: family reunification. In theory, it is about compassion; in practice, it has morphed into chain migration, where one immigrant becomes the conduit for dozens more, consuming most of the limited legal slots the country has available. This structure has nothing to do with America’s economic needs, its security priorities, or its cultural cohesion. It simply privileges volume over strategy and sentiment over prudence.

Meanwhile, the so-called “solutions” layered on top of this faulty foundation are disasters in their own right. Take the wildly abused H1-B program, originally intended to supplement the U.S. workforce with high-skilled labor. Instead, major corporations—and plenty of smaller operators—have turned it into a pipeline for cheaper foreign labor, displacing American workers in the process.

Then there is the asylum system, which has been corrupted beyond recognition. Migrants claim persecution, then return frequently to the very countries they supposedly fled in fear. “Refugees” pass through a dozen countries but decide the U.S. is their refuge of choice only after reaching the border. If that isn’t proof of a system being manipulated, nothing is.

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is another glaring example of how government intentions decay into government dysfunction. Designed as a short-term reprieve for individuals fleeing war or natural disaster, TPS has become effectively permanent for entire nationalities. Somalis, for instance, have been on “temporary” protection since 1991. And even those convicted of serious crimes can stay by telling a sympathetic judge they fear persecution at home.

This is not fairness. It is not compassion. It is not responsible governance.

It is chaos.

And chaos is precisely what breeds tragedies like the one allegedly committed by Lakanwal.

President Trump’s outrage in the aftermath of the DC attack is not only understandable—it is justified. His instinct, long dismissed or caricatured by critics, has again proven correct: America cannot maintain national security, public safety, or economic stability without an immigration system built for clarity, control, and national interest. But as forceful as presidential action may be, no president—Trump included—can craft a permanent, durable solution through executive authority alone.

What the United States needs is a complete modernization of immigration law. Not tinkering. Not patching. Not another “special program” or “temporary measure” destined to become permanent. We need a full legislative overhaul, the kind of serious, structural reform that has been dodged by Congress for decades.