Last year, after months of in-fighting among Democrats, opposition from Republicans, and technical obstacles, President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act died in Congress. The $1.9 trillion spending bill contained a few immigration provisions watered down from Biden’s original immigration reform proposal known as the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. As the name suggests, the U.S. Citizenship Act would have established pathways to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented residents, including those with special status designations such as DREAMers — those brought here unlawfully as children — and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders. But lawmakers opted to try passing smaller bills, including severely watered down measures where citizenship provisions were left out altogether. Some trimmed-down bills are still floating around Congress a year later, highlighting the possibility of citizenship for millions of undocumented residents who live and work here remains out of reach. The U.S. Citizenship Act proposed sweeping immigration reforms, such as expanding legal work access for immigrants and dependents — potentially affecting 13.6 million green card holders in the U.S. — as well as providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented residents. According to the Center for American Progress, the U.S.’s undocumented workforce alone contributes an estimated $79.7 billion in federal taxes, in addition to $41 billion in state and local taxes. But the U.S. Citizenship Act was ultimately abandoned by lawmakers in favor of smaller separate bills, given the unlikelihood that such sweeping reforms would gain enough support from Republicans and conservative Democrats to pass the Senate. Some smaller measures have stalled in Congress while others have perished as part of the broader Build Back Better bill. Source: https://documentedny.com/2022/04/15/immigration-reform-congress-citizenship/
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