Democrats and Republicans in Congress have come together and proposed a reform for the United States’ broken immigration system.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, and Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Florida, presented the bipartisan immigration reform bill known as the Dignity Act on July 15.
“The vast majority of immigrants are hard-working, law-abiding residents; and, most Americans recognize that it is in our country’s best interest to find bipartisan reforms,” Escobar said announcing the bill. “We can enact legislation that incorporates both humanity and security, and the Dignity Act of 2025 offers a balanced approach that restores dignity to people who have tried to navigate a broken system for far too long.”
The bill is a stripped-down version of a bill that Escobar and Salazar proposed in 2023.
The reform comes as President Donald Trump has continued to escalate a crackdown on immigrants across the country.
Here is what you need to know about the 2025 Dignity Act:
What is in Dignity Act 2025?
When will the Dignity Act be voted on, and who is supporting the bill?
At least 10 Republicans and 11 Democrats have voiced their support for the Dignity Act. The bill, however, is just starting the legislative process. The bill, however, will likely face an uphill battle in Congress.
What are immigration expert saying?
The bill is largely positive, two immigration experts said.
It is the result of a compromise between Republicans and Democrats.
“This is clearly a compromise,” Jorge Loweree, the Director of Policy at the American Immigration Council, said. “Neither side gets everything that they want. Both sides can very easily point to things they don’t like, but it is a positive development.”
However, there are a few negative aspects to the bill, including the lack of a pathway to citizenship and its failure to benefit immigrants who entered the country during the Biden administration.
“It doesn’t go back far enough,” Ernesto Castañeda, a sociology professor and author of the book Immigrant Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions, said. “It leaves a lot of problems unsolved.”
Castañeda points out that nearly 4 million people who arrived following Dec. 31, 2020, would be ineligible for the program, including the immigrants who entered through the Biden administration’s CBP One app. Trump shut down the application upon entering office on Jan. 20, and transformed it into a tool for self-deportation.
When was last immigration, visa reform?
There have been two immigration reforms in the last four decades.
President Bill Clinton signed an immigration reform in 1996 that tightened immigration laws, limited due process, and strengthened southern border enforcement. The previous reform was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, which legalized immigrants who entered the country before 1982 and split the H-2 visa into H-2A and H-2B for temporary agricultural and non-agricultural workers.
There have been at least 13 immigration reform proposals introduced in Congress since 2013, with the most recent proposal presented by Escobar and Salazar in 2023.
Then U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, joined the Gang of Eight, a bipartisan effort to reform immigration in the U.S. Senate, in 2013. He said at the time he was dedicated to immigration reform. He abandoned this effort for lack of support, especially among Republicans.
Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:jdabbott@gannett.com; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: What is Dignity Act 2025? How will it change US immigration system?
Reporting by Jeff Abbott, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
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