The authority to regulate immigration policy is vested in Congress by the U.S. Constitution, and the courts have repeatedly upheld congressional authority to make distinctions among aliens. Legislation has continuously favored those immigrants whose desire to leave their homeland would be beneficial to the United States. The Refugee Act of 1980 sought to bring immigration policy more in line with humanitarian concerns and international agreements. U.S. policy permits detention of three classes of potentially excludable aliens: those who lack proper entry papers, those who have committed crimes outside the United States, and those who have committed crimes outside and within the United States. In cases where exclusion becomes impossible, the courts have been split on the issue of indefinite detention. Under the present policy, courts and officials must apply a strictly defined code to situations which vary greatly in the degree of restriction required. While specific proposals for policy reform require further definition, changes clearly are necessary. The distinction between economic and political refugees must be clarified, and due process distinctions between deportable and excludable aliens must be abandoned. Finally, the expansion of the domestic analog for crimes of moral turpitude into areas of more serious crime, with the imposition of rehabilitative sentencing, would more accurately reflect the sentencing, would more accurately reflect the alien's potential for entering society. Footnotes are included.