House Dems seek to update immigration law, create path to legal status
Rep. Lou Corea, D-Calif., headlines a group of Democrats from California, New York and Illinois that plans to reintroduce the "Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929" bill on Thursday.
“What we're going to do is look at passing immigration reform that's very simple, to do it on one page. It’s not thousands of pages, it’s one page: Change the registry date,” Correa said in an interview with Spectrum News.
The Registry Act of 1929 created a process allowing immigrants to apply for permanent residency — better known as a “green card” — provided they could prove they arrived in the U.S. before 1921, and met a handful of other criteria.
The Registry Act has been updated a handful of times over the decades, including in 1986, when the cutoff was moved to Jan. 1, 1972.
“So if you're an undocumented person in the US and you got here before 1972, you can apply to change your status — that is, trying to apply for a legal green card,” Correa said. “It's not automatic, but you get it. And what our bill does is simply updates that date to 2015.”
“We need immigrants. Right now we have, 10, 11 million undocumented workers in the United States. Fifty percent of all farmworkers are undocumented. We need more farm workers,” Correa said.
“Every day, the U.S. Chamber calls me and says we need workers. Every day, small businesses call me and say we need workers,” Correa added. “How do we fill those jobs we need to fill in the United States?”
By:
CASSIE SEMYON AND DAVID MENDEZ
Source:
Spectrum News
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