Linda Sanchez, a Democrat who sponsored a broader immigration reform package in the House backed by the Biden Administration. Both bills are backed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Citizenship Act of , aimed at modernizing the American immigration system. But the Biden Administration was supportive of these efforts, giving each a statement of support ahead of passing. Similar bills were passed in the Democrat-controlled House during the Trump Administration with Republican support before the Senate refused to take them up.
Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a Republican who voted for both bills in the last Congress, when asked whether the situation at the border made it harder for Republicans to support the proposals. Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, the Republican lead of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act who backed both of the measures in the Thursday vote, agreed the timing of the bills made it difficult for Republicans to get on board. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. I think we are much more likely to deal with discrete elements.
Lindsey Graham, R-S. The White House formally backed both bills early Thursday in statements that also called on lawmakers to move forward with the Citizenship Act. Skip Navigation. Key Points. And in the House, Speaker Pelosi needed 50 to 70 Republican votes to move forward but a resolution in the Republican conference opposing the Senate bill passed by to She decided not to bring it to the floor.
It took six years before a second comprehensive immigration bill was introduced into Congress. As in , many political experts thought that this time the stars were aligned. Democrats had picked up seats in the Senate in the elections that gave them a comfortable majority. And Democratic President Barack Obama had won a second term in office with a strong backing from Hispanic voters, leading national Republicans to discuss the need to deal with immigration in the face of the growing Hispanic vote.
While Republicans still controlled the House, Democrats had picked up seats. On June 27, , Senate bill , a second comprehensive immigration bill, passed the Senate on a 68 to 32 vote. Contributing to this optimism was the fact that this time around the Democratic coalition was less divided. In the six years since failure of the legislation, the labor movement had changed and included many more Hispanics in its membership.
Workers care for the elderly, mow our lawns or drive our taxis, work hard and deserve a reliable road map to citizenship. The Congressional Black Caucus was a bit less enthusiastic but still expressed support for the effort while complaining that the Diversity Visa Program had been eliminated. Chamber of Commerce and the agricultural lobby were on board as well.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration had continued efforts begun during the Bush administration to prove that the United States could police the borders. In federal prosecutions for immigration crimes reached an all-time high.
If the factions of the Democratic Party had softened in the years between and , the factions in the Republican Party had hardened. In , Speaker John Boehner was facing significant intra-party infighting, largely due to the growing voice of the Tea Party activists in his conference—a group that would contribute to his historic resignation just two years later. The first version of the DREAM Act, which would have offered a path to citizenship to DREAMers, was introduced in , but time and time again, the legislation has failed to attract the necessary Republican votes to pass.
The Obama-era DACA program has so far shielded them from deportation, despite being the target of attacks from immigration restrictionists since it was enacted in For four years, President Donald Trump unsuccessfully sought to dismantle DACA and, for a time, halted new applications to the program. That could affect a significant portion of the more than 1 million people eligible for DACA. People who currently have DACA can still apply for renewals, though that could change as the court case goes through the appeals process.
Immigrant advocates have argued that the decision has made a legislative solution for DREAMers all the more urgent. Though budget reconciliation could be that solution, it might not come soon enough for people affected by the decision in the Texas case. TPS holders have similarly been waiting for Congress to offer them protection. About , citizens of El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti have also been able to live and work in the US with TPS, but Trump tried to terminate their status, among nationals of other countries, starting in November , against the advice of senior State Department officials.
He argued that conditions in those countries have improved enough that their citizens can now safely return. But many of them have resided in the US for decades and have laid down roots, making it difficult for them to return to countries they no longer call home. There are more than 5 million undocumented essential workers living in the US — almost three in four undocumented immigrants in the workforce. That includes an estimated 1. California Sen.
Alex Padilla and Texas Rep. The US agricultural industry has relied on immigrant labor for decades, dating back to the Bracero Program in the s that allowed millions of Mexicans to come to the US as farm workers.
0コメント