House passes immigration bills with pathways to citizenship for ‘Dreamers’ and farmworkers

The House of Representatives passed two bills Thursday that would collectively provide a path to citizenship for 3.5 million undocumented immigrants, proposals that offer a piecemeal approach to fixing the nation’s immigration system at a time when arrivals to the border are surging.

The American Dream and Promise Act would give 2.5 million undocumented immigrants the chance to apply for citizenship, most of them “Dreamers,” immigrants who came to the U.S. at a young age with their parents. The legislation passed in a 228 to 197 vote in the Democrat-controlled House.

Nine Republicans crossed party lines and voted in favor of the legislation, including Miami’s three Republicans in Congress— Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez.

“It’s not the perfect bill,” Salazar said. “I want to send the right message to the Democrats that I’m willing to work with them. Let’s see if now they’re going to work with us.”

In addition to helping “Dreamers,” the bill also includes protections and a potential route to citizenship for Temporary Protected Status recipients, which includes those from countries like Haiti and Venezuela. In total, it stands to make up to 4.4 million individuals eligible for permanent residence, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

The House also passed a second immigration bill Thursday, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. The vote was 247 to 174, with all Miami Republicans and Florida Democrats in support. The bill allows more than 1 million undocumented farmworkers to apply for legal status if they have worked at least 180 days in agriculture over two years.

Both bills are separate from President Joe Biden’s comprehensive bill that proposes an eight-year pathway to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants. Experts say Biden’s bill is not expected to generate enough Republican votes in the U.S. Senate to pass, but the smaller immigration bills for “Dreamers” and farmworkers have a better chance of getting at least 10 GOP votes in the Senate, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

“It’s long past time Congress gives a path to citizenship for Dreamers and TPS recipients who strengthen our country and call our nation home. Undocumented farm workers feed America and have been on the frontlines of this pandemic making sure we have food on our tables,” President Biden posted on Twitter late Thursday night.

“I urge Congress to come together to find long term solutions to our entire immigration system so we can create a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system, tackle the root causes of migration and legalize the undocumented population in the United States,” he added.

Miami Republicans made a calculated decision when they voted in favor of both bills, said Brian Fonseca, a political analyst and director of Florida International University’s Institute for Public Policy.

“Voting against the immigration reform could have been costly, and could have hurt their bid for 2024,” Fonseca said. “However, at the end of the day, immigration is important to those communities. There’s no doubt that they are in very vulnerable districts, so it makes sense why they voted the way they voted.”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos chimed in on Instagram as legislators prepared to cast their votes, urging lawmakers to pass the bills. Bezos noted that his father came to the U.S. from Cuba alone at the age of 16 and succeeded because of “grit, determination, and the support and kindness” of Americans.

“I’m hopeful that policymakers will come together to create a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and prioritize more commonsense immigration reforms like reducing the green card backlog,” Bezos wrote. “Families across America deserve this.”

Every Democratic House member from South Florida, Reps. Frederica Wilson, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Alcee Hastings, Ted Deutch and Lois Frankel, all voted for American Dream and Promise Act, which allows more than 2.3 million “Dreamers,” as well as beneficiaries of certain temporary humanitarian programs, to gain permanent legal status. In 2019, the House approved a similar version of the bill but it died in what was then a Republican-run Senate under the Trump administration, which favored policies constricting legal and illegal immigration.

But some lawmakers like Salazar think there are better solutions.

On Wednesday, Salazar led a group of nine GOP lawmakers in rolling out a rebuttal to Democrats’ immigration plan, which they called “unworkable” amid a growing crisis at the southern border. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently said attempted border crossings are on pace to reach their highest levels in 20 years.

The Republican proposal includes increasing funding for enhanced border security; expanding visas for agricultural workers; developing a 10-year path to a renewable legal status for undocumented immigrants who have no criminal record; protecting “Dreamers;” and implements mandatory E-Verify, a federal program that checks the immigration status of workers.

“My Democrat colleagues have presented an immigration reform law that they know, they know will never become law in the way that it has been written,” Salazar said.

“As Hispanics, we don’t want any more false promises, false hopes,” she added. “We want for those 11 million undocumented who are here in the country to be treated with dignity. But this will not happen, it will not happen, if we don’t stop the madness at the border with real, permanent solutions, not with executive orders.”

Thomas Kennedy, a national immigration advocate at United We Dream, a nonprofit youth network, called the passage a “victory.”

“First time in history that two immigration bill pass the U.S. House of Representatives [during] first 100 days of a new administration,” he said. “Millions will be protected from deportation if these bills pass the Senate.”

This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 6:47 PM.