On Thursday, House Democrats passed a pair of bills that would create a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and some migrant farm workers, taking a gradual approach compared to President Biden’s major immigration package. The Dream and Promise Act would provide certainty to undocumented people brought to the U.S. as children whose ability to go to school, get work and even remain in the country has hung in the balance from administration to administration. The bill would also allow those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to apply for citizenship, a group from countries around the world that ranges from those fleeing civil unrest and natural disasters as early as the 1990s to Venezuelans deemed eligible for the status by the Biden administration earlier this month. In total, the Dream and Promise Act would help naturalize nearly 4.5 million people.
The House on Thursday also approved legislation that provides a citizenship pathway for seasonal migrant farmworkers, allowing those who have been traveling to the U.S. for work for a decade to apply for citizenship after another four years.
That bill, which passed 247-174, is expected to provide citizenship to more than a million migrants, and it also ups the number of agricultural visas available to those seeking to come to the U.S. for work.
Both face an uncertain future in the Senate, where Republicans continue to push for increased border security as a condition for action on bills benefiting Dreamers and others.
Though the two bills together would provide a substantial number of noncitizens with the ability to naturalize, it falls short of the 11 million figure that would be covered by the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, a major immigration package pushed by Biden.
Though the White House issued statements of support for both bills, it also urged the passing of Biden’s bill, stressing the need “to reform other aspects of our immigration system.”