Biden's Broad Immigration Reform Bill Lands in Congress: Here's What Would Change

The administration of President Joe Biden has officially rolled out its major immigration bill on Thursday that offers an eight-year path to U.S. citizenship for 11 million undocumented people.

The bill represents Biden's chance to bring significant changes to a system where both parties see a need for reform but are sharply divided on how to deliver it. The bill's chief sponsors were Rep. Linda Sanchez and Sen. Bob Menendez, according to a The Hill report.

White House officials said the bill could reset and restart conversations on immigration reform. They further described the bill as Biden's "vision of what it takes to fix the system."

"The last four years of misguided policies have exacerbated the already broken immigration system and highlighted the critical need for reform," Biden said in a statement.

He added that the bill would address the past administration's wrongdoings and restore justice, humanity, and order to the U.S. immigration system.

Biden's Promises on Immigration Policies

During the campaign, Biden outlined his plan for immigration reform, containing key promises such as immediately reversing the Trump administration's policies that separate parents from their children at the border; and ending the "National Emergency" that funnels federal dollars from the Department of Defense to build a border wall.

According to a Forbes report, some of Biden's promises also include ensuring that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel follow professional standards and are held accountable for inhumane treatment.

One of the president's promises was also to protect Dreamers and their families, which would be possible once the bill passes Congress. Dreamers are young people brought to the U.S. by their parents as children.

The bill also makes an effort to ease immigration timelines abroad and increase numerous types of visa caps while seeking to reduce wait time for those who may currently wait as long as 20 years to join their families in the U.S.

Undocumented people living in the U.S. would be able to seek green cards after five years and three more years before citizenship is granted. That eight-year total is shorter than 13 years called for in the last failed comprehensive immigration reform effort in 2013, a Los Angeles Times report noted.

The bill will also pave the way to changing terms from "aliens" in law to noncitizens to better show Biden's values on immigration. It would also lift the three-and 10-year bars that restrict people from reentering the U.S. if they have overstayed their visas.

Jorge Loweree, policy director with the American Immigration Council, said this is not a fundamental restructuring of the immigration system. Loweree added that it does not change the categories in place or create new categories.

On Thursday, congressional Democrats signaled that there would be little room for compromise on the bill's big picture mandates.

"We know the path forward will demand negotiations with others. But we are not going to make concessions out of the gate. We're not going to start with 2 million undocumented people instead of 11 million. We will never win an argument that we don't have the courage to make," Menendez said in The Hill report.

A senior White House official further noted that the law is already there, and there is no need for added enforcement mechanisms.

If it passes, the bill would be the first major immigration bill approved by Congress since 1996, when lawmakers voted to produce the deportation and enforcement system mostly in use until today.