House OKs immigration bills; Senate prospects bleak
WASHINGTON • The House voted Thursday to unlatch a gateway to citizenship for young Dreamers, migrant farm workers and immigrants who’ve fled war or natural disasters, giving Democrats wins in the year’s first votes on an issue that once again faces an uphill climb to make progress in the Senate.
On a near party-line 228-197 vote, lawmakers approved one bill offering legal status to around 2 million Dreamers, brought to the U.S. illegally as children, and hundreds of thousands of migrants admitted for humanitarian reasons from a dozen troubled countries.
They then voted 247-174 for a second measure creating similar protections for 1 million farm workers who have worked in the U.S. illegally; the government estimates they comprise half the nation’s agricultural laborers.
Both bills hit a wall of opposition from Republicans insistent that any immigration legislation bolster security at the Mexican border, which waves of migrants have tried breaching in recent weeks. The GOP has accused congressional Democrats of ignoring that problem and President Joe Biden of fueling it by erasing former President Donald Trump’s restrictive policies, even though that surge began while Trump was still in office.
While Dreamers win wide public support and migrant farm workers are a backbone of the agriculture industry, both House bills face gloomy prospects in the evenly split Senate. That chamber’s 50 Democrats will need at least 10 GOP supporters to break Republican filibusters.
The outlook was even grimmer for Biden’s more ambitious goal of legislation making citizenship possible for all 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally, easing visa restrictions, improving border security technology and spending billions in Central America to ease problems that prompt people to leave.
“It is a Biden border crisis, and it is spinning out of control,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
“We don’t know who these people are, we don’t know what their intentions are,” Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., said of immigrant farmworkers who might seek legal status.
He added, “It’s frightening, it’s irresponsible, it’s endangering American lives.”
Seven Republicans voted for the “Dreamers” bill.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., criticizes Democrats on immigration policy during a Thursday news conference at the Capitol in Washington.