The House Judiciary Committee yesterday passed two bills that would legalize so-called Dreamers and aliens with Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforcement Departure status. A third approved bill would provide Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans.
The Dream Act of 2019 (H.R. 2820) would provide conditional legal status and work permits for 10 years to most illegal aliens 18 or over who claim to have entered the country before reaching the age of 18 and claim to have been continuously present during the four years immediately prior to enactment. Once granted amnesty, they can receive a green card and a lifetime work permit after: 1) receiving a degree from a U.S. institution of higher learning, 2) completing 2 years of schooling in pursuit of a 4-year degree, 3) serving in the military for 2 years, or 4) working for 3 years for at least 75% of the time after receiving a work permit. The measure would amnesty as many as 3.5 million illegal aliens.
The committee also passed the American Promise Act of 2019 (H.R. 2821), which would legalize around 429,000 recipients of Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforcement Departure, and a bill (H.R. 549) to extend Temporary Protected Status to an unknown number of Venezuelans in the U.S. illegally or preparing to migrate.
Committee Republicans offered numerous amendments to the measures but all were voted down by Majority Democrats. All three were approved along party lines.
The text of H.R. 2820 and H.R. 2821 was initially included in H.R. 6, a bill Democrats deemed a priority for quick passage this year. But ideological divisions within the party delayed action on the bill. Caucus members last week settled their differences and reconfigured the measure into two bills for procedural purposes.
