How do you define status quo? Not enforcing our immigration laws? Not securing our border? Not tracking down and deporting visa overstays? Not penalizing employers who hire illegals? Providing a backdoor amnesty to 1.8 million Dreamers circumventing Congress and the law? Providing n-state tuition to illegal aliens? Issuing driver's licenses to illegals? Calling for a blanket amnesty of 12 to 20 million lawbreakers?
When you reward something, you get more of it. In 1986 the proponents of amnesty said it would be a one-time event never to happen again. The USG estimated that one million would apply, but the true number turned out to be 2.7 million. The 1986 amnesty bill (Simpson-Mazolli) contained penalties against employers who hired illegals. The recipients were required to learn English. There were background checks, etc. The only problem is that none of the enforcement provisions were implemented. And the entire process was rife with fraud with phony document mills being set up blocks from the processing centers. We had a flood of illegals enter the country once the word was out about amnesty even though you have had to have been here prior to 1982 to qualify.
We now have 12 to 20 million illegals and we have the same people or those like them saying we should do the same thing. Immediate amnesty followed by promised enforcement. This is the real status quo. The same failed solution to the same problem.
NB: As someone who is deeply involved in this issue and knowledgeable about the 1986 legislation, 2006 Hagel-Martinez, 2007 McCain-Kennedy, what Paul and Rubio are now selling is essentially the same thing. It especially mirrors McCain-Kennedy, which also had probationary status using the infamous "Z" visa. It is just old wine in new bottles. Let's call it what it really is: AMNESTY.
Once we give the illegals legal status, they will be able to bring in their families thru chain migration, i.e., family reunification. The Heritage Foundation concluded that the cost of amnesty would be $2.6 trillion just for increased entitlement program costs. And this didn't include Obamacare. And the number of additional LEGAL immigrants who would join those who were the recipients of amnesty through chain migration, i.e., family reunification, would approach 70 million over a 20-year period, assuming there are only 12 million illegal aliens. We cannot assimilate such numbers. An amnesty would destroy the United States of America with the stroke of a pen.
The status quo is everything you describe.
Seems we’re stuck with it.