Flake floats new immigration measure

Bill maintains current overall legal levels

As the Senate this week debates immigration policy and border security, Sen. Jeff Flake plans to file legislation that would provide a 12-year path to citizenship for “dreamers” and the $25 billion that President Donald Trump wants for a border-wall system, while maintaining current legal immigration levels.

Flake, R-Ariz., is introducing his PILLAR Act of 2018 in this week’s debate on the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and border security.

Republicans so far appear to be coalescing around the Secure and Succeed Act of 2018, sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, which most closely reflects Trump’s priorities, including restricting family-based immigration.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is backing another bipartisan bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the “dreamers” but provide no wall money.

The debate will determine which competing plan — if any — can secure the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate’s procedural filibuster.

The major difference between Flake’s proposal and the Secure and Succeed Act is that Flake’s legislation wouldn’t cut overall legal immigration levels.

Flake has argued that legal immigrant labor is crucial to U.S. economic growth, saying last month on the Senate floor that he was troubled that the proposed changes to legal immigration “would come just as the aging U.S. population increases our dependence on a growing workforce.”

Flake would offer a 12-year path to citi-

zenship to 1.8 million “dreamers,” or undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Dreamers who are now participating in DACA, which Trump is trying to eliminate on March 5, would get a two-year credit. The program was created by then-President Barack Obama via executive action to shield the young immigrants from deportation and allow them to get work permits.

To be eligible for the Flake bill’s path to citizenship, a dreamer would have had to have been younger than 18 when he or she arrived in the United States and have lived here continuously since before June 15, 2012. He or she must be attending college, have a high-school or equivalent diploma or have military experience. The dreamer cannot have any criminal convictions or moral violations and must have addressed any tax liability.

The PILLAR, or Preserving Immigration Levels and Legally Enhancing Readiness Act, also would eliminate the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, which Trump also wants to do, and would reallocate 25,000 of the program’s roughly 55,000 visas to employmentbased immigrants and the other 25,000 to help eliminate the backlog in family-sponsored immigration.

In contrast, the Grassley bill would cut the diversity and family-unification visas and initially use them to clear the existing visa backlogs. But after that, the visas would appear to end.

Flake’s bill also would, according to a summary obtained by The Republic, restrict family-based immigrant visas to the spouses and children of the sponsoring immigrants. But it would reallocate the visas to relieve the existing backlog and then provide 50 percent of the remaining visas to immigrants with advanced degrees and the other 50 percent to skilled workers.

Even before this week’s debate, Flake raised the possibility of Congress being unable to find consensus on the immigration issues.

Flake told The Republic last week that if Congress can’t pass any of the current plans, he intends to have a contingency bill ready that would legislatively renew DACA for three years in exchange for three years of border-security funding.