Sen. Padilla takes helm of subcommittee
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla has been named chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee in the 117th Congress, just in time for President Joe Biden to unveil a an ambitious plan on Thursday to reform the nation’s immigration system.
Padilla, a Democrat whose path to the U.S. Senate began in Pacoima, will be the first Latino to ever hold the position.
“While no state has more at stake in immigration policy than California, the entire nation stands to benefit from thoughtful immigration reform,” Padilla said in a statement. “I commit to bringing the urgency to immigration reform that this moment demands and millions of hard working immigrants have earned.”
Democrats expect to push hard on reform as part of a sweeping Biden administration agenda.
On Thursday, the administration unveiled a major proposed immigration overhaul that — if approved by the bitterly divided Congress — would offer an eight-year pathway to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 11 million people living here without legal status.
Biden’s priorities also include an increase in visas, funding to process asylum applications and new technology at the southern border.
But while the plan offers one of the fastest pathways to citizenship of any proposed measure in recent years, it does 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 would immediately provide green cards to farmworkers, those 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.
Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants who was appointed to fill the seat left vacant by now Vice President Kamala Harris, said his goal was to restore “humanity, dignity and respect to the immigration process,” after four years of hardline Trump administration border and deportation policies.
In that spirit, he said he changed the name of the subcommittee, which was once known as the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration to the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Safety.
Padilla said he plans to advocate for immigrant communities in California and across the country, including essential workers, many from immigrant communities particularly affected by COVID-19.
The subcommittee has jurisdiction over a wide array of immigration issues, including: citizenship, border safety, refugee laws, and oversight of immigration functions in various departments, from Homeland Security to the Department of Justice.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.