WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has rolled out its immigration policy. The president campaigned on reversing the policies of the Trump Administration.
So, what’s in the bill?
Question:
What is in the Biden administration's immigration proposal?
Answer:
A comprehensive sweeping change to the previous administration's approach to immigration policy.
Sources:
The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. Teresa Cardinal Brown, an expert on immigration policy from the Bipartisan Policy Center.
What We Found:
The immigration reform bill backed by the Biden administration is called the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. There are basically two identical bills in the Senate and the House.
“The big headline feature is that it has very broad legalization programs that would cover just about all of the undocumented people who are currently in the United States,” Theresa Cardinal Brown said.
Cardinal Brown of the Bipartisan Policy Center went over three key points of the bills:
- Includes an 8-year path to citizenship for all undocumented people living in the U.S. as of Jan. 1, 2021.
- Green cards for DACA, or “Dreamers”, and farm workers.
- Changes language in immigration laws from “alien” to “non-citizen.”
“There are separate programs that would allow a direct avenue to a green card for the so-called 'dreamers,' the undocumented people who arrived as children, as well as for farmworkers,” Cardinal Brown explained.
We asked Cardinal Brown how likely is this bill to pass in its current form?
“I think now we just kind of, ‘wait and see,’ if you will, what the congressional sausage making looks,” she said. “Is there a deal to be had, that Republicans could be on board with? And what does that look like?”