Immigration bill
Measure also would help migrants from troubled countries
House approves bill offering legal status to around 2 million “Dreamers.”
WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to unlatch a gateway to citizenship for young “Dreamers” and immigrants who have fled war or natural disasters abroad, giving Democrats a win in the year’s first vote on an issue that once again faces a steep uphill climb in Congress.
On a near party-line 228-197 vote, lawmakers approved one bill offering legal status to around 2 million “Dreamers,” brought to the U.S. illegally as children, and hundreds of thousands of other migrants from a dozen troubled countries.
Passage seemedimminent for a second measure creating similar protections for 1 million farmworkers who have worked in the U.S. illegally; the government estimates they comprise half the nation’s agricultural laborers.
Both bills hit a wall of opposition from Republicans insistent that any immigration legislation bolster security at the Mexican border, which waves of migrants have tried breaching in recent weeks. The GOP has accused congressional Democrats of ignoring that problem and President Joe Biden of fueling it by erasing former President Donald Trump’s restrictive policies, even though that surge began while Trump was still in office.
The House bills’ prospects were gloomy in the evenly split Senate, where the 50 Democrats will need at least 10 GOP supporters to break Republican filibusters. The outlook was even grimmer for Biden’s more ambitious goal of legislation making citizenship possible for all 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally, easing visa restrictions, improving border security technology and spending billions in Central Americato ease problems that prompt people to leave.
Democrats said their bills were aimed not at border security but at addressing groups of immigrants who deserve to be helped.
“They’re so much of our country,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said of “Dreamers,” who like many immigrants have held frontline jobs during the pandemic .“These immigrant communities strengthen, enrich and ennoble our nation, and they must be allowed to stay.”
Neither House measure would directly affect those trying to cross the boundary from Mexico. Republicans criticized them anyway for lacking border security provisions and turned the debate into an opportunity to lambast Biden.
“It is a Biden border crisis, and it is spinning out of control,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
While the number of migrants caught trying to cross the border from Mexico has been rising since April, the 100,441 encountered last month was the highest figure since March2019. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said the number is tracking toward a 20-year high.
Democrats were making that problem worse, Republicans said, with bills they said entice smugglers to sneak more immigrants into the U.S. and provide amnesty to immigrants who break laws to enter and live in the U.S.
“We don’ t know who these people are, we don’t know what their intentions are,” Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., said of immigrant farmworkers who might seek legal status.
During earlier debate, Democrats said Republicans were going too far.
“Sometimes I stand in this chamber and I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, listening to a number of my Republican colleagues espouse white supremacist ideology to denigrate our ‘Dreamers,’ ” said Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y.
Nine largely moderate Republicans joined all Democrats in backing the “Dreamers” bill.
The House approved similar version soft he “Dreamers” and farmworker bills in 2019. But both of those measures died in what was a Republican-run Senate. Neither would have received the signature of Trump, who spent his presidency constricting legal and illegal immigration.
In contrast, Biden has suspended work on Trump’s wall along the Mexican border, ended his separation of young children from migrant families and allowed apprehended minors to stay in the U.S. as officials decide if they can legally remain. He has also turned away most single adults and families.
The “Dreamers” bill would grant conditional legal status for 10 years to many immigrants up to age 18 whowere brought into the U.S. illegally before this year. They’d have to graduate from high school or have equivalent educational credentials, not have serious criminal records and meet other conditions.
To attain legal permanent residence, often called a green card, they’d have to obtain a higher education degree, serve in the military or be employed for at least three years. Like all others with green cards, they could then apply for citizenship after five years.
The measure would also grant green cards to an estimated 400,000 immigrants with temporary protected status, which allows temporary residence to people who have fled violence or natural disasters in 12 countries.
The other bill would let immigrant farmworkers who’ve worked in the country illegally over the past two years — along their spouses and children — get certified agriculture worker status. That would let them remain in the U.S. for renewable 5 -year periods.