Salazar introduces bipartisan immigration-reform bill in Congress

With hundreds of thousands of migrants stranded in Mexico while trying to reach the United States, Miami Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar introduced a bill in Congress on Tuesday that she believes addresses the strident issues that for decades have kept the two main political parties apart on immigration reform.

The initiative — which Salazar says is the first bipartisan immigration bill introduced in Congress in the last 10 years —would create a legal pathway for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already inside the United States, while at the same time allocating billions of dollars to increase border security, an effort that would be paid by the immigrants themselves.

Salazar is the author of the bill, which will be co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, who will be the co-lead, and it will be supported by Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich., Rep. Lori Chávez-DeRemer, R-Oregon, Rep. Kathy Manning, D-NC; Rep. Mike Lawler, R-NY and Rep. Jenniffer González Colón, the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico.

“We are fixing legal immigration (and) it won’t cost the taxpayer one cent,” Salazar told the Miami Herald. “It will be fully paid by the people who are here and will be getting” into the pathway set out to legalize their status.

Congress has failed for more than 30 years to overhaul immigration laws, including failing to pass a bill proposed by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and backed by President Biden shortly after the president took office. As a result, the Biden administration has had to resort to executive actions like its predecessors to address immigration issues and the record-number of illegal crossings at the border. But some of those actions, including new asylum rules to replace Title 42, the public health measure used by President Trump to swiftly expel migrants, have come under heavy criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.

Salazar said the bill, which has Democratic support, is immigration reform that has the best chance of getting through Congress, given that a bill approved by the Republican-controlled House a couple of weeks ago will most likely be rejected by the Democratic controlled Senate. The difference between her bill and the previous one, she said, is that the newly proposed reform addresses the concerns of both parties. “It covers everybody,” she said.

The bill would have a path for immigrants who have been residing illegally in the United States for more than five years to come out of the shadows, Salazar said. That would be a great relief for millions who, aside from their undocumented immigration status have behaved as law-abiding citizens, paying their taxes and raising U.S.-born children.

With the exception of those who have committed a crime, the program would grant undocumented immigrants authorization to work and live in the United States for seven years, under a program called the “Dignity Status,” after paying $5,000. After those seven years, immigrants would qualify for “Redemption Status,” which would lead to citizenship at a cost of another $5,000.

Those funds, which could potentially add to several billions of dollars, would be used to finance a new workers’ reeducation program to help any American worker who feel they have lost their job to an immigrant, to obtain the training needed to get a better job, Salazar’s deputy chief of staff, John Mark Kolb, said.

“The American workers’ fund will be the most historic investment in American worker in history. It is going to be $45 billion and any American can tap into that,” he said.

Those hoping to obtain U.S. citizenship through the programs in the reform would not have access to government programs or subsidies. For example, they would have to pay for their own health insurance, Salazar said.

In addition, immigrants under the Dignity program would have 1.5% of their paychecks deducted for a special fund that would be used to secure the border. That percentage would be deducted in place of the 7% normally taken for Social Security and Medicare, she said.

Salazar added that dealing with the border is one of the bill’s most important provisions and that the 1.5% deduction would be enough to set aside the billions needed.

The bill contemplates the acquisition of state-of-the-art technology to better monitor the border, to construct “an impenetrable border infrastructure system,” which would include enhanced physical barriers and to hire more border patrol agents.

The bill would also modify the current asylum provisions by creating five “humanitarian campuses” for those hoping to obtain the immigration status. The construction of those centers would put an end to the often criticized practice known as catch-and-release, she said, in which detained undocumented migrants are allowed to go free while waiting for a resolution of their cases.

The campuses would keep family members from being divided and migrants would have a resolution of their cases within 60 days, after which applicants would either know if asylum has been approved, denied or pending, in which case they would be allowed to be free while wearing an ankle bracelet.

The bill also provides special provisions for a guest worker program directed to cover the labor needs of farms and other areas, Kolb added.

Salazar said she expects the private sector to support of the bill, which provides solutions to the labor shortage they have been facing.

“And Dignity is the best solution that is out there, because the reality is that there is no other complete immigration reform that we know of that has been written either in the house or in the Senate,” she said. “There is nothing out there that will pass both parties.”