>No. djrogers above literally said that "This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue." So unless you want to play games with finding an alternative antecedent for "this", you are going to have to retract that.

The parent's "This" indeed refers to the "150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants Wit..." in TFA.

But as the parent explicitly mentions, "this" (the indian immigrants issue" is "ONE OF" the penalties that the US pays.

He then proceeds and explicitly mentions the larger issue they discuss, which is "the illegal immigration issue".

It's not really hard to parse the obvious fact that the parent expands the scope to the overall issue:

"THIS (the Indian wait issue in TFA) is ONE OF the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ISSUE".

Obviously he speaks of the "illegal immigration issue" at large.