WASHINGTON – President Biden has said repeatedly that he wants to create a path to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
But as he prepares to push for the broadest possible revision of the country’s immigration laws, he and his aides have begun to signal an openness to more targeted approaches that could gain citizenship for smaller, discreet groups of undocumented immigrants. In a CNN city hall on Tuesday, he said such efforts would be acceptable “in the meantime”.
In a private liaison with activists on Wednesday, top immigration advisers from Biden said they supported what they called the “multiple trains” strategy, which could target the citizenship of the “Dreamers”, young immigrants illegally brought to the country. country when children; agricultural workers who worked for years in American fields; and others.
Smaller projects can move forward as the president tries to build support for broader legislation, which is scheduled to be presented on Thursday, according to two people who were on the call.
If he decides to act step by step, Biden seems unlikely to anger the most powerful pro-immigration groups, which are adopting a more pragmatic strategy after spectacular defeats under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
For more than two decades, activists have tried and failed to secure approval for a wide-ranging revision of the country’s immigration laws that would create a path to citizenship for most undocumented immigrants, a faster path for Dreamers, expanded access to visas for highly skilled workers and a new program for seasonal farm workers.
They are betting that Biden will fight even harder than his predecessors to win the support of a Republican Party that became more anti-immigrant during the Trump administration.
While activists are willing to let Biden try a bipartisan deal this year, they warned that they will not wait forever.
“We want 11 million people to be legalized. This is our North Star, ”said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice and veteran of immigration wars in the nation’s capital for more than 30 years. “But we cannot go home empty-handed. We are not going to take an all-or-nothing approach. We need to make progress ”.
For those like Sharry, this is a major shift and can spark fierce debates over whether Democrats should use parliamentary tactics in the Senate to force individual immigration measures without any Republican support.
Activists are mobilizing on behalf of separate bills that would legalize Dreamers; agricultural workers; immigrants who received temporary status after fleeing wars and natural disasters; and undocumented “essential workers” who fought on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
Publicly, the White House insists that Congress must approve the president’s broad immigration reform. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said this week that Biden was pushing for comprehensive changes because “they all need to be resolved – that’s why he proposed them together”.
And the main supporters of Biden’s legislation in Congress – Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez of California – say that abandoning the broader effort before it even started would be a mistake. Menendez and Sánchez are expected to reveal details about the president’s legislation early Thursday morning after it is presented to the House.
A Democratic aide familiar with the legislation said that if immigration activists ask for only “half bread”, they shouldn’t be surprised when they end up returning home with just a slice of bread.
“We have an economic and moral imperative to pass a big, bold and inclusive immigration reform – a reform that leaves no one behind,” said Menendez late on Wednesday. He criticized defenders for not being willing to fight for legislation that would eventually legalize the country’s undocumented population.
“We shouldn’t start with concessions right from the start. We are not going to start with two million undocumented instead of 11 million, ”he said. “We will never win an argument that we do not have the courage to present. We must defend our defense of a bold, inclusive and lasting immigration reform.
How to successfully renew the country’s immigration system has eluded lawmakers in Washington. The last time a major immigration bill was passed in 1990, when President George Bush expanded legal immigration to the United States, before an explosion of illegal crossings on the southwest border in the next 20 years.
The increase in illegal border crossings has generated demands for greater inspection by conservatives, even with delays in legal immigration, creating a growing crisis for companies looking for workers and families seeking refuge in the United States from violence and domestic disasters.
For nearly three decades, immigration advocates have advocated a single, comprehensive bill with elements that could unite Democrats and Republicans, trade unions and big business, security-conscious conservatives and liberal immigration advocates.
These bills – introduced in 2001, 2006, 2007 and 2013 – revolved around compensation: they increased border security and the application of immigration law in exchange for a path to citizenship for people without documents. They also included increases in the number of temporary workers allowed in the United States; more resources to process asylum applications; new opportunities for highly qualified workers from other countries; some limits on immigration based on family ties; and protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.
But none of these efforts have been successful. Despite the support of President George W. Bush, the Senate and the House were unable to reach an agreement in 2006, and the 2007 legislation was defeated in the Senate. In 2013, Obama secured bipartisan approval of a Senate immigration review from 68 to 32, only to see it ignored by the Republican-controlled House. Over the past four years, part of the conservative side of the equation – border security – has been guaranteed by Donald J. Trump in the form of harsh restrictions on asylum seekers and partial construction of the Trump border wall.
Biden won the presidency in part by promising that he would bring back bipartisanship and saying that his longstanding Senate relationships would help him overcome the party divisions that have deepened in recent years. Ms. Psaki said the president outlined “the principles of how we think the proposal should be” in the hope of addressing the root causes of immigration problems.
But immigration advocates say the story of failure is driving a change in strategy this year.
“You are talking about a fight that we have had for more than three decades right now,” said Lorella Praeli, the president of Community Change Action. “I am not interested in a dance. I am committed to seeing that and delivering concrete changes. “
Ms. Praeli and other proponents praised Mr. Biden, Mr. Menendez and Ms. Sánchez for their broader bill. But they also asked the president to promise that he would also use a budgeting tool known as reconciliation to enact smaller components of the legislation, even as he proceeds with the greater effort.
According to Senate rules, legislation that significantly affects the country’s budget can be passed only with a majority of votes, avoiding obstruction rules that require the support of 60 senators. With the current 50-50 Senate, that would give Democrats the ability to pass reconciliation projects without Republican support and with Vice President Kamala Harris voting decisively – if they can stay together.
Immigration advocates say that some more targeted efforts to legalize some undocumented immigrants would pass the sometimes bewildering reconciliation rules, which allegedly preclude pure policy measures from bills that should deal with government taxes and spending. As newly legalized residents would affect tax revenue and government benefits, the groups say that immigration legislation could be adapted as budgetary measures.
Reconciliation is already being used to strengthen the $ 1.9 trillion Biden pandemic relief package, but another budgetary measure should address infrastructure financing and climate change.
“We should be included in that package,” said Mr. Sharry of America’s Voice.
Biden’s immigration efforts face even more obstacles than those of Obama and George W. Bush.
Many Republican senators who supported immigration – including John McCain and Jeff Flake, of Arizona; Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, from Tennessee; Orrin Hatch, from Utah; Dean Heller of Nevada; and others – left the Senate. Others, like Marco Rubio, from Florida, and Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina, who helped negotiate previous immigration packages, changed direction in the Trump years.
Kerri Talbot, the deputy director of the Immigration Hub, said it was clear to many of the groups that Republicans cannot be counted on to support a broad immigration review without the kind of extreme measures that Mr. Trump insisted on during his presidency. She said that pursuing smaller popular measures, such as legalization for Dreamers, would put Republicans in doubt.
“We are always open to a broader discussion, but in the absence of that, we want to move forward with pieces that can pass,” she said. “We would love to have a bipartisanship. I would love to have this conversation again. But it really depends on the Republicans ”.
Praeli said that she and others who had fought for immigration for years believed it was time to “put the ‘W’ on the board” by granting a path to citizenship for as many people as possible.
“We are at a different time,” said Praeli, who became a citizen in 2015 after spending years without documents after arriving in the United States as a child. “We can see that Trump is no longer here, but Trumpism has not gone away.”