“Dreamers” in Joe Biden’s United States of America are perhaps enjoying a quiet chuckle. Friday’s passage of the immigration bills envisage a path to citizenship for “Dreamers”, so-called, and farm workers. The first category refers to those who have been in the United States since childhood and have known no other country of residence.
Altogether, the bill, therefore, seeks to take care of a fairly wide cross-section of the populace. The two proposals will legalise “subsets” of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in America without legal permission. Democrats are now said to be assessing the chances of approving immigration legislation and sending it to President Biden’s desk.
Nine Republicans have reportedly supported the move. All House Democrats voted to approve the American Dream and Promise Act, which was passed by a vote of 228 to 197. The proposal will allow more than 2.3 million “Dreamers,” or unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as minors, as well as beneficiaries of certain temporary humanitarian programmes, to gain permanent legal status and eventually, US citizenship.
The Act is quite the most immigrantfriendly piece of legislation. There may be hope yet for farm workers as well. By a vote of 247 to 174, the Democrat-led House also passed the Farm Workforce Modernisation Act, which will grant legal status to hundreds of thousands of farmworkers living in the United States without authorization.
Here too, 30 Republicans voted in favour of the bill. Remarkable has been the across-the-aisle support, albeit partial, for the two critical pieces of legislation. Considering that Mr Biden’s sweeping plan to legalize most of the country’s undocumented population has been greeted with broad Republican rejection, the stand-alone bills may represent the best opportunity for Democrats to get the immigration legislation through the evenly divided Senate.
With 13,000 migrant children in custody, President Biden faces the first border test, not the least along the Mexican border at Tijuana where, as often as not, parents and chidren have been separated. “It’s always been a pleasure for me to sing the praises of our Dreamers. They make us so proud,” the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said at an event with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus at the Capitol ahead of the votes.
“For us, this is a day of not only passing legislation, but a cause for celebration.” Sure it is, not the least because of the refreshing winds of change blowing across America… postDonald Trump. Conditions there will be. Would-be applicants will be eligible to apply for permanent residence if they have earned a college degree or have enrolled in a bachelor’s programme for two years; if they served in the military for at least two years; or if they worked in the US for a three-year period. There may be hope yet for the “dreamer”.