Member Advisory – April 18, 2013

Senate introduces long-awaited immigration bill; strong DREAM Act provisions included

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) praises the U.S. Senate for introducing its long-awaited Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill which provides a path to citizenship for the 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The legislation is the first effort at comprehensive immigration reform since an unsuccessful effort in 2007. 

The bill has provisions that will allow most undocumented immigrants who were in the country before December 31, 2011 to gain registered provisional immigrant status if they pay a $500 fine and appropriate fees and assessed taxes, have been present in the U.S. since that time and have not been convicted of a serious crime. The quickest path to citizenship would be 13 years. 

HACU is especially pleased with the provisions in the legislation on the DREAM Act. There is no age cap for Dreamers, a provision which HACU commends given recent more limited versions of the DREAM Act. The legislation also allows Dreamers to apply for a path to citizenship after five years. Those individuals who received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) could have an expedited path to citizenship and would be grandfathered into registered provisional status. Agriculture workers would be eligible for a similar path to citizenship.

The bill also includes new border control measures including border guards and workplace tracking systems.  In addition, the bill would create a competitive grant program for STEM Capacity Building at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) using 12% of the revenues from increases applied to the H1B visa fees.

“HACU is very pleased to see a promising bill in the works in the Senate. We are especially pleased with the legislation’s inclusion of a very reasonable version of the DREAM Act.   There are also provisions in the bill which address STEM funding for Hispanic-Serving Institutions.  We hope that the bill progresses through the Committee process and receives fair and timely consideration on the Senate floor and moves over to the House,” said HACU President and CEO Antonio R. Flores.    “We look forward to continuing to work with both the Senate and the House to pass a fair and just Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill.”