The legislation faces an escalation in a narrowly divided Congress, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has only a five-vote margin and Senate Democrats do not have the 60 Democratic votes needed to approve the measure with the support of her party alone. .
“He has been in the Senate for 36 years and is the first to say that the legislative process may look different from the other side,” said a government official in a liaison with reporters, adding that Biden would be “willing to work with the Congress. “
Government officials said the best way forward and plans to approve a project or split it into several parts would be up to Congress.
“There are things that I would handle on my own, but not at the expense of saying, ‘I will never do the other.’ There is a reasonable path to citizenship, “said Biden at CNN’s Milwaukee City Hall on Tuesday.
“The president is committed to working with Congress to start talks on the best way forward,” said a government official.
Officials did not say whether they believed that the reconciliation process, a special budgetary tool that applies only to a specific subset of legislation and allows the Senate to pass bills with a simple majority, would apply to an immigration bill. “It is too early to speculate on this now,” said an official.
The Senate is working on passing the president’s coronavirus relief legislation through reconciliation. The expectation is that the government will also take advantage of the process to approve an infrastructure account.
Biden’s immigration bill will be presented by Democrats Bob Menendez of New Jersey in the Senate and Linda Sanchez of California in the House.
Plan a path to citizenship
The legislation goes beyond the last effort in 2013, reducing the time it takes to acquire citizenship to eight years instead of 13, according to a government official.
First, individuals would be in provisional condition for five years, with three years until citizenship is obtained, totaling an eight-year trajectory.
There is an exception for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, who fall under a form of humanitarian aid known as Temporary Protection Status or who are rural workers. These individuals can go directly to green cards if they meet the requirements, including passing background checks.
To be eligible for the bill’s legalization plan, immigrants must be in the country before January 1, 2021.
Terminology change
In the past, officials have pointed to the prevalence of the term in US law to defend their choice of words.
But the term “illegal alien”, long condemned as a dehumanizing slander by immigrant rights defenders, became even more of a lightning rod during the Trump era – with some senior federal officials encouraging its use and several states and local governments taking measures to ban it.
Clear accumulations
The bill would exempt certain categories from counting for annual limits. For example, spouses, partners and children under the age of 21 of legal permanent residents would be exempt from the limits.
The project also provides funding for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to reduce the backlog of asylum applications.
Changes in the legal immigration system
The project provides funding for more immigration judges and emphasizes access to lawyers. Authorizes the financing of lawyers for children and vulnerable individuals and removes the one-year limit for filing an asylum case.
The measure would also remove barriers to reentry in the United States if an individual already resided illegally in the country.
It increases the number of so-called diversity visas available, which are granted by random selection in selected countries to promote immigration from places that would not otherwise send many immigrants to the United States. The project would increase the number of visas granted annually from 55,000 to 80,000, according to a government official.
The legislation proposes the creation of a commission composed of employers, unions and civil rights defenders to make recommendations on how to improve the verification of workers, according to an administration official. The measure would also increase protections for immigrants who come forward to report labor violations and increase penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers.
Investing in the US-Mexico border and Central America
The project would address the root causes of migration and work to combat them, for example, by suppressing smugglers, narcotics and trafficking networks. It would seek to create legal and safer avenues for migration by establishing refugee processing in Central America and would create a $ 4 billion investment plan in the region.
“It will be developed in a bipartisan manner in the first place, but it will also require countries in the region to reaffirm their commitment to corruption, invest their own resources and take steps to reform their systems,” said a government official.
The measure also includes the improvement of technology and infrastructure at the border, such as greater screening at ports of entry.
CNN’s Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.