The United States Democrats have introduced an ambitious, politically desperate attempt to break through years of lawmaking inaction on immigration reform and deliver a direct pathway to lawful status for thousands of immigrants without papers in the United States of America.

Moreover, if the measure becomes law, they’d reform the legal landscape for immigrants, potentially providing the considerable overhaul of the United States immigration statuses since the Ronald Reagan administration and fulfilling a solemn promise Joe Biden made during the 2020 Presidential campaign.

We will bring undocumented people out of the shadows and provide them with a pathway to citizenship, including those who courageously kept our economy running in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 9, 2021

The details of the measure have yet to be provided. Moreover, passage is far from certain and seen as not likely by some observers. Moreover, the measure, once finalized, experiences not only procedural threats that could prevent them from even getting a Senate vote but also political obstructions as Demos seek to pass transformative lawmaking on their own in the equally divided chamber.

Senate Demos revealed Monday an initial framework for Fiscal Year 2022 proposed federal budget resolution, which starts in Oct. 2021. That framework included two items concerning immigration. The first is a legal permanent status for qualified immigrants, and the second is investments in smart, effective border security. No more details were provided, but Demos have long championed granting lawful status to a significant part of the estimated twelve million immigrants in the United States.

History Behind The Effort

Bernie Sanders, the Senate Budget Committee chairman, produced the framework and said in a tweet on Monday that they’ll uncover illegal people and provide them with a pathway to U.S. citizenship, including those people who daringly kept their country’s economy running during the deadly epidemic.

Furthermore, the “budget framework proposals” mirror elements of the American President’s immigration reform bill revealed in Feb. 2021 that would create an 8-year pathway to U.S. citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants in America while also delivering a fast-track citizenship for those brought to the U.S. unlawfully as children. Moreover, the proposals reflect the brush strokes of a failed 2013 two-party effort at wide-ranging immigration reform that passed the U.S. Senate but never earned a vote in the U.S. House.

It has been thirty-five years since the United States Congress last acted to grant lawful status to a significant number of immigrants. In 1986, then-U.S. President Reagan put his signature on the “Immigration Reform and Control Act,” which provided a pathway to permanent lawful citizenship for about 3M illegal immigrants and created an American visa for seasonal agricultural workers.

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