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President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats proposed a major immigration overhaul Thursday that would offer an eight-year pathway to citizenship to the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally.
The legislation reflects the broad priorities for immigration changes that Biden laid out on his first day in office, including an increase in visas, more money to process asylum applications and new technology at the southern border.
It would be a sharp reversal of Trump administration policies, and parts are likely to face opposition from a number of Republicans. Biden has acknowledged he might accept a more-piecemeal approach if separate major elements could be approved.
“We have an economic and moral imperative to pass big, bold and inclusive immigration reform,” said New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, one of the lead sponsors of the bill, in unveiling it Thursday.
Menendez said Democrats have failed in the past because they have too quickly given in “to fringe voices who have refused to accept the humanity and contributions of immigrants to our country and dismiss everything, no matter how significant it is in terms of the national security, as amnesty.”
Separately, enforcement guidelines released Thursday by the new administration would target immigration enforcement more directly at people in the country illegally who pose a threat. That, too, would be a reversal from the broader targeting policy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump.
The major immigration overhaul legislation would offer one of the fastest pathways to citizenship of any proposed measure in recent years, but it would do so without offering any enhanced border security, which past immigration negotiations have used as a way to win Republican votes. Without enhanced security, it faces tough odds in a closely divided Congress.
The bill Democrats introduced Thursday would immediately provide green cards to farm workers, immigrants with temporary protected status and young people who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children. For others living in the U.S. as of Jan. 1, 2021, the plan establishes a five-year path to temporary legal status. If they pass background checks, pay taxes and fulfill other basic requirements, then, after three years, they can pursue citizenship.
The plan also would raise the current per-country caps for family and employmentbased immigrant visas. It would eliminate the penalty barring those immigrants who live in the U.S. without authorization and who then leave the country from returning for three to 10 years. It also would provide resources for more judges, support staff and technology to address the backlog in processing asylum seekers.
The bill would expand transnational anti-drug task forces in Central America and enhance technology at the border. And it would set up refugee processing in Central America, to try to prevent some of the immigrant caravans that have overwhelmed border security in recent years.
The plan includes $4 billion spread over four years to try to boost economic development and tackle corruption in Latin American countries, to lessen pressure for migration to the U.S.
Democratic lawmakers, including lead sponsors California Rep. Linda Sanchez and Menendez, held a virtual press conference Thursday to unveil the bill.
“Our border policy is broken, period,” Sanchez said. “But this bill employs a multipronged approach that will manage the border, address the root causes of migration crack down on bad actors and create safe and legal channels for those who are seeking protection.”
Republican immigration hardliners were already panning the bill Thursday. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, charged in a statement that the bill “rewards those who broke the law” and “floods the labor market at a time when millions of Americans are out of work.”
A digitally savvy nation woke up Thursday to a shock on Facebook: The news was gone.
The social media giant had decided to block journalism in Australia rather than pay the companies that produce it under legislation now before Parliament.
And then Australians discovered it wasn’t just those staples that were missing. Pages for state health departments and emergency services were also wiped clean. The Bureau of Meteorology, providing weather data in the middle of fire season — blank. An opposition candidate running for office in Western Australia, just a few weeks from an election — every message, gone.
Even pages for nonprofits providing information to domestic violence victims fell into the Facebook dragnet, along with those for organizations that work with the poor and vulnerable.
“It’s quite scary when you see it happen,” said Elaine Pearson, the Australia director at Human Rights Watch, which lost its own Facebook posts with reports on deaths in Australian police custody, on the coup in Myanmar and other topics.
More frightening was what remained: pages dedicated to aliens and UFOs; one for a community group called “Say No to Vaccines”; and plenty of conspiracy theories, some linking 5G to infertility, others spreading lies about Bill Gates and the end of the world.
Facebook initially blamed the proposed law (which is expected to pass within days) for the disappearances, including what it called the legislation’s toobroad definition of news. Later in the day, Facebook promised to revive vital public service pages, which rolled back online gradually.
Josh Frydenberg, Australia’s federal treasurer, who would oversee how the law was carried out, was among the first Thursday to declare that Facebook’s actions revealed the kind of abusive tactics that demanded government intervention.
“What today’s events do confirm for all Australians is the immense market power of these digital giants,” he said.