Biden Plans Day-One Immigration Overhaul, Testing Senate Bipartisanship

Joe Biden will propose a broad immigration overhaul on his first day as president, including a shortened pathway to U.S. citizenship for undocumented migrants -- a complete reversal from Donald Trump’s immigration restrictions and crackdowns, but one that faces major roadblocks in Congress.

The new president’s legislation would allow the roughly 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S. to gain citizenship within eight years instead of 13, according to a Biden transition official. Unlike past reform measures, it does not include an explicit trade-off of enhanced border security.

The proposal would grant work permits for the spouses and children of people with temporary visas. But it would not expand the number of high-skilled foreign workers admitted on H-1B visas, which are widely used in the U.S. technology industry but sometimes criticized by labor groups.

With the plan, Biden seeks to deliver on a major campaign promise to Latino voters and immigrant-rights groups, many of whom were alienated and outraged by Trump’s restrictions on legal immigration, police raids on the homes and workplaces of undocumented people living in the U.S., and his fortification of the border with Mexico. But the bill as proposed almost certainly won’t pass a narrowly divided Congress, and even if it is amended to better reflect Republican concerns, odds are long that lawmakers will finally unknot a policy that’s confounded Washington for decades.

Recent efforts to comprehensively overhaul U.S. immigration law dating back to George W. Bush’s presidency failed, even at a time when Republicans sought to broaden their appeal to Hispanic voters. There hasn’t been a substantial revamp of American policy since 1986, when President Ronald Reagan signed a law that made 3 million undocumented workers eligible for legal status.

Ever since, immigration opponents in the Republican Party have demonized such proposals as “amnesty” for people who broke the law. In 2007, an immigration overhaul backed by Bush was blocked in the Senate and never considered in the House, despite Democrats controlling the chamber.

Six years later, under President Barack Obama, a plan negotiated by a bipartisan group of eight senators passed the Senate 68-32 -- only to die in the House, where Republican leaders refused to consider it.

The most recent attempt at an overhaul collapsed in 2018 when each of four competing plans, including a broad bipartisan plan and one that reflected Trump’s priorities, were blocked from consideration on the Senate floor.

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