On Friday, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, hosted a press conference in Los Angeles alongside immigration advocates, impacted families, and community leaders to announce legislation to expand a pathway to lawful permanent residency for millions of long-term U.S. residents. 

Amid what Padilla called the Trump Administration’s indiscriminate immigration enforcement in California and across the country, the bill would offer a forward-looking, strategic update to the United States’ outdated immigration system to counter President Trump and Stephen Miller’s demonization of undocumented immigrant communities.

Padilla’s Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929 would update the existing Registry statute of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA, by adjusting the Registry date to meet current circumstances so that an immigrant may qualify to apply for lawful permanent resident status if they have lived in the U.S. continuously for at least seven years before filing an application, do not have a criminal record, and meet all other current eligibility requirements to receive a green card. 

This update, which Padilla called overdue, would provide a much-needed pathway to a green card for more than eight million people, including Dreamers, forcibly displaced citizens (TPS holders), children of long-term visa holders, essential workers, and highly skilled members of our workforce, such as H-1B visa holders, who have been waiting years for a green card to become available. 

According to 2023 FWD.us estimates, if the undocumented individuals covered in this bill eventually became citizens, they would contribute approximately $121 billion to the U.S. economy annually and about $35 billion in taxes.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is co-leading the legislation in the Senate, and Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.-18) is leading companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

“Americans know there’s a better path forward than the Trump Administration’s cruel scapegoating of hardworking immigrants and fearmongering of California communities,” said Sen. Padilla. “We believe that if you’ve lived here for over seven years, paid taxes for years, contributed to your community for years, and you don’t have a criminal record, then you deserve a pathway to legalization. My bill is a commonsense fix to our outdated immigration system and the same kind of reform that Republican President Ronald Reagan embraced four decades ago, calling it a ‘matter of basic fairness.’ This legislation creates no new bureaucracies or agencies — it’s simply an update to a longstanding pathway to reflect today’s reality and provide a fair shot at the American Dream for millions of Dreamers, TPS holders, and highly skilled workers who have faced delays and uncertainty for decades.”

“Recently, we have seen devastating arrests of immigrants who have spent their lives in this country, building communities and families in the United States, without any due process. Most have never committed any crime,” said Sen. Durbin. “Protections for these hard-working individuals are long overdue. It’s common sense that immigrants who pose no safety threat and contribute to our country should be able to call America home with certainty; additionally, it’s also common sense that the small percentage of undocumented immigrants who do commit violent crimes should be removed. Expanding the registry pathway to citizenship is a practical solution to provide stability to immigrants who have worked and contributed to our country for years. It’s part of the solution, and I look forward to working to pass this bill into law.”

“When Donald Trump ran for president, he pledged to deport violent criminals. Instead, masked, heavily-armed agents, often refusing to identify themselves, are aggressively, sometimes violently, targeting day laborers, busboys, farmworkers, and some of the hardest-working people in this country. It’s outrageous and deserves the condemnation of every Member of Congress. We need to control our borders, but we also need a straightforward reform solution for those who have resided peacefully for a long time in America,” said Representative Lofgren. “My colleagues and I are reintroducing our registry legislation to simply update a historically-bipartisan provision that provides lawful permanent resident status to vetted immigrants who have been a part of our communities for years. Providing stability to our communities and our workforces – versus terrorizing them – will make our country stronger.”

Section 249 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as the Registry, gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the discretion to register certain individuals for lawful permanent resident status if they have been in the country since a certain date and meet other requirements. 

Section 249 was first codified in 1929 and Congress has modified it four times, most recently during the Reagan Administration in 1986. No changes have been made since 1986, and the cutoff date for eligibility remains Jan. 1, 1972 — more than 50 years ago.

Specifically, the Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929 would:

• Amend the existing Registry statute by moving the eligibility cutoff date so that an immigrant may qualify for lawful permanent resident status if they have been in the U.S. for at least seven years before filing an application under Registry.
• Preempt the need for further congressional action by making the eligibility cutoff rolling, instead of tying it to a specific date, as it is now.

The bill is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).