gianna gronowski

The Biden administration’s spending bill holds the potential to include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented DREAMers who have long since waited in limbo for action.

The Democrat sponsored Build Back Better federal budgetary spending bill proposes a pathway to citizenship in its criteria that would grant full access of public benefits to millions of undocumented immigrants. The $3.5 trillion bill also includes literature that would grant five-year amnesty passes for immigrants who cross the border via illegal channels.

Nearly 800,000 DREAMers are recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, a program instituted by the Obama administration back in 2012. Recipients of this program are undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors. Program recipients are not legal citizens, but are granted the ability to apply for a driver’s license, Social Security Number, and worker’s permit.

A federal judge in December 2020 blocked the Trump administration from ending the program, allowing first-time applicants to continue to apply.

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen countered the ruling in July 2021, barring first-time applicants from applying for the program. Hanen said the program was “unlawful.”

Applicants who applied prior to July 16, 2021 were still to be processed.

The Build Back Better budgetary bill would also provide this pathway to citizenship for Temporary Protected Status holders, farmworkers, and other essential workers.

Republicans in Congress oppose the inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers and other undocumented immigrants.

“These proposals, irresponsible in normal times, are insane under current circumstances,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said in an op-ed for Fox News. “In a painfully sluggish economy wracked by inflation, supply chain shortages and rising energy prices, the last thing Americans need is a massive influx of foreign workers taking jobs and opportunities.”

An estimated amount of five million undocumented immigrants already in the workforce are essential workers who have kept the country running during covid, according to the Center for American Progress Immigration. The independent nonpartisan institute also reported nearly a quarter of a million undocumented workers are placing their lives at risk while working in health care roles amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Farmworker Association of Florida joined FIRM Action, Poder Latinx, HOPE CommUnity Center, and other activist groups to call on Florida Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott to support immigration reform policies. “It is time we ditch party lines and support legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship to more than 11 million people,” The Farmworker Association of Florida said in a statement.

Standalone immigration reform does not have the support it needs in the current makeup of Congress to pass, requiring immigration reform to be stuffed into other bills.

Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the U.S. Senate Democrats are going to revise some of the immigration language used in the bill in order to make it more appealing to those congresspeople who oppose it.

“We’re not quitting,” Durbin said.

Charlie Crist is a Democratic primary candidate for governor in the 2022 Florida midterm election. Crist currently serves Florida’s 13th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Maria Rodriguez is the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition.

“We can’t want and benefit from their labor and not recognize their full selves. That’s bad for our economy and our democracy,”said Crist and Rodriguez in an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel. “We won’t stand for it. The path and possibility is real. The time is now.”

Democrats are still debating on immigration provisions as of November 1, 2021.

Congress is expected to vote on the Build Back Better budget plan in the upcoming week.