Rep. Salazar’s immigration bill offers path to legal residency, requires E-verify use
Miami Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar introduced legislation Tuesday that would set up a new legal residency program for millions of undocumented immigrants and create a potential path to citizenship for those who complete a pair of programs over 15 years.
Salazar’s 483-page bill, titled “The Dignity Act,” would set up numerous changes to the immigration system, including measures to increase border security, an expedited process for asylum seekers and a new program to provide a path to legal residency for undocumented immigrants already in the country.
The first-term GOP representative has been floating the legislation since last year, but Tuesday marked its official introduction. She said the bill was intended to simultaneously halt new illegal immigration and to provide dignity to undocumented people who are already residing in the U.S.
“You can come out of the shadows and live a dignified life,” Salazar said in a phone call with reporters Tuesday morning.
The legislation would set up a new “Dignity Program,” which would allow undocumented immigrants who have been in the U.S. for five years to remain in the country and work legally if they satisfied the program’s requirements.
Participants in the Dignity Program would have to pass a criminal background check, pay back taxes, start paying income taxes on new wages and pay $10,000 in restitution over 10 years to the federal government for entering the country illegally.
“A thousand dollars a year to live in the promised land, it’s more than accepted,” Salazar said. The restitution money would go into a new American Worker Fund, which would pay for workforce training for U.S. citizens.
Unpacking the bill’s details
Participants in the program would be required to purchase health insurance but would be ineligible for federal subsidies, according to Salazar’s office. The bill would also impose a 2% income tax levy on the program’s participants. It would pay for increased border security by increasing the number of Border Patrol agents, upgrading their technology and constructing physical barriers.
“The undocumented labor force is going to be paying for border security,” Salazar said.
Participants would be allowed to travel back and forth between the U.S. and their country of origin. They would be legal residents rather than citizens.
“The Dignity Proposal considers that the majority of the undocumented population may not be looking for a citizenship-or-nothing deal, but would likely be content with the opportunity to live in the U.S. legally, work and pay taxes, have protection from deportation (for non-felons), and be able to travel to their country of origin and be with family for the holidays,” states a summary of the legislation from Salazar’s office.
At the end of 10 years, participants in the Dignity Program would have the option of continuing work in the country as legal residents under a renewable visa or they could enter a five-year “Redemption Program,” which would provide a pathway to citizenship for participants who make payments of $2,500 every 20 months to the American Worker Fund and who study English and U.S. civics.
Completion of the Redemption Program would put participants in line to become citizens, but they would be in the back of the line for their country of origin.
Participants in the already existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, who entered the U.S. as children and who are commonly referred to as “Dreamers,” would have multiple tracks for full legal permanent residency under Salazar’s bill, including three years of military service and earning a higher education degree.
Romina Montenegro, Florida advocacy coordinator of United We Dream, a youth-led organization that focuses on immigrant rights, described the bill as “lackluster and harmful” and criticized the representative for not taking on Florida officials.
Salazar “can’t pretend to be a champion for immigrants in Washington, while ignoring the constant attacks in Miami and across Florida from DeSantis and other state lawmakers,” said Montenegro in a statement.
Oscar Londoño, co-executive director of WeCount!, an immigrant workers’ collective based in Homestead, said in a statement the Dignity Act “betrays its own name.”
“Instead of treating immigrant workers and families with real dignity through a clean amnesty program for all, this proposal imposes needless hurdles and restrictions that will leave millions behind, including many of her constituents in South Florida,” said Londoño.
Vanessa Cardenas, deputy director of America’s Voice, a liberal-leaning immigration reform group, panned Salazar’s bill as a “press release aimed at immigrant voters in her district designed to burnish her re-election, not a serious effort to pass legislation or take on the nativists in the GOP.”
The more conservative-leaning National Immigration Forum, on the other hand, hailed Salazar’s bill in a statement as a “decisive, constructive step toward immigration reforms that are long overdue” and said it was “glad to see Republicans take this step and start a good-faith conversation around legal immigration pathways that are responsible and humane.”
What are the chances this will pass?
The Republican-crafted bill could face an uphill battle in the Democratic-controlled House, but the bill could gain traction if Republicans recapture the majority in the chamber in the November election. House Democrats passed their own immigration reform bill last year with Salazar’s cross-aisle support, but the pathway-to-citizenship legislation stalled in the Senate.
Asked Tuesday if she thought the bill could find bipartisan support in the current Congress, Salazar replied that the only one who knows the answer to that question is “the Lord almighty.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said later in the day that she was not familiar with details of Salazar’s bill but that President Joe Biden, who proposed an immigration reform plan on his first day in office, “is eager to work with anybody who wants to put in place immigration reform policies that would create a safer system, a more effective system, a more humane system at the border.”
Among the other policy reforms in Salazar’s bill is the creation of a national E-verify system, which would require all employers regardless of size or industry to confirm through a Department of Homeland Security website that prospective employees can legally work in the country. It’s a policy Salazar argued would curb illegal immigration by eliminating the hiring of undocumented workers.
Several states, including Florida, already have E-verify requirements on the books, but Salazar’s proposal would represent a comprehensive use of the system that would take effect for large companies within a year of the bill’s enactment and for small companies within two years.
“We are creating a level playing field,” Salazar said when asked if she expected pushback from the business community to the proposed requirement.
She contended that the universal application of the E-verify system would create parity and predictability for businesses. Businesses could legally hire participants in the Dignity Program.
“If we don’t have those hands in the field, Americans will not eat,” Salazar said.
Miami Herald staff writer Syra Ortiz-Blanes contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 11:41 AM.
