The Senate immigration reform bill will benefit the children who were smuggled into America, at a very young age by their parents and who have been living in the United States as undocumented immigrants in shadows. They are the DREAMers who always wanted the country to pass the DREAM Act and legalize them and the Senate bill would be put the DREAMers on a fast track to US citizenship. This applies to the people who were minors when they were brought to the country. In the year 2012, President Obama enacted the deferred action policy and permitted the undocumented youth between ages 15 and 31, to apply for a two-year reprieve from deportation. But undocumented immigrants above age 31 are ineligible for deferred action.
The immigration reform bill of the senators includes provisions for all the DREAMers and this bill would permit all the DREAMers, irrespective of their current age to apply for legal status and remain in America. This is based on the DREAM Act, that would legalize the young undocumented immigrants. This Senate bill would benefit all the DREAMers who have been fighting all these days, for protection and for legal status. The bill of the “Gang of Eight” would permit all the DREAMers who had entered the country at a very young age to obtain permanent resident status within five years. However, the other undocumented immigrants would be required to wait for a decade to become permanent residents.
First, the DREAMers would be required to submit biometrics information and apply for Registered Provisional Immigrant status. They would be permitted to apply for permanent resident status five years after obtaining Registered Provisional Immigrant status if they establish that they were under age 16 when they arrived in the United States, that they are high school graduates or that they have served for two years in the US armed forces. DREAMers who were deported and DREAMers who are ineligible for deferred action status would also be permitted to apply for temporary status and then for permanent resident status. Moreover, deported DREAMers would be allowed to re-enter the country if they were deported due to the unlawful presence if the immigration reform bill is passed.
Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant and an immigration activist who is ineligible for deferred action status stated that the new immigration reform bill of the senators has “some very good things in it”. He also stated that America is the home for several individuals who were brought up and educated in the country and such individuals must be permitted to live in the country.