Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) has earned a reputation for making bipartisan deals without abandoning his Republican idealism.
On Wednesday, he joined Sen. Alex Padilla (D–Calif.) to introduce legislation on illegal immigration. With this legislation, they plan to provide a path to citizenship DREAMers.
The term “DREAMer” comes from the 2001 DREAM Act — an acronym for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors.
A DREAMer is someone who came to the U.S. as a child on a parent’s visa but who failed to obtain a visa or green card before the age of 21.
The DREAM Act would have allowed certain illegalized immigrants to obtain a green card, a certificate of permanent residency that can serve as stepping stone to citizenship. For eligibility, the applicants would need to have entered the U.S. before the age of 16, graduated from an American school, and demonstrate a citizenly character.
The bill failed in the Senate in 2001, and it has been re-introduced multiple times since then, all to no success.
Now, evidently, Paul and Padilla are introducing it again, under a different name. They’ve called it the America’s Children Act.
Their bill goes further than the original DREAM Act. Under the new bill, green card applicants could obtain a visa while waiting for Homeland Security to process their applications for green cards. Also, they would no longer need to obtain a green card by the age of 21. They would only need to apply for one by the age of 21.
However, the new bill also requires ten years of work in the U.S.
“We cannot turn our backs on the ‘Documented Dreamers’ who have spent most of their lives in this country, contributing to their communities and our economy but face continued uncertainty and risk deportation once they turn 21,” Padilla said in a statement. “These young people deserve the opportunity to pursue their American dream and continue building lives in the country they call home.”
These people can already apply for green cards, but Padilla says that the applications take too long to process.
“They often end up stuck in a decades-long backlog,” Padilla said. Paul agreed.
“These children who have legally called the United States home for many years and even decades, are contributing members in our communities and to our economy,” Paul said in a statement. “They shouldn’t be penalized by the government’s failures in addressing green card backlogs.”
The Horn editorial team