The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2023

On Wednesday, May 10, 2023, Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez will introduce the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2023 , a humane, common-sense, and long-overdue approach to solving our immigration challenges.

This legislation, sent to Congress by President Joe Biden in 2021, restores humanity and American values to our immigration system. The legislation provides hardworking people who enrich our communities every day and who have lived here for years, in some cases for decades, an opportunity to earn citizenship. It modernizes our immigration system, and prioritizes keeping families together, grows our economy while ensuring every worker is protected, responsibly and effectively manages the border with smart and effective investments, addresses the root causes of migration from Central America, and ensures that the United States remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution. The bill provides a new vision for the border.

The U.S. Citizenship Act includes three key pillars: responsible and effective border management, economic growth and strengthened labor force, and family reunification. You can read more about these key pieces below.

The U.S. Citizenship Act resets U.S. border policy to focus on smart solutions

• Increased migration is a hemispheric issue. Ongoing violence and instability are forcing people to flee their home countries and undertake dangerous journeys throughout the region including to the United States.
• Protection options for people escaping persecution in the Western Hemisphere are limited, leaving people no choice but to make the dangerous journey north.
• The majority of drugs enter the United States through – not between – ports of entry. CBP seizures of Fentanyl alone at the ports of entry have increased more than 200% as of March 2023.

The border must be secure, but our policies must also reflect our humanitarian values and work for our economy.

• An analysis of 2021 FBI Crime statistics found that border cities have lower violent crime and homicide rates per capita than the national average. At the same time, the border region is an economic engine that helps support our national economy.
• Mexico and Canada are our top trading partners in the world, together accounting for nearly one-third of U.S. exports. In 2021, two-way trade in goods and services between the United States and Mexico totaled over $725 billion.
• In FY 2022, CBP processed more than 107,000 pedestrians per day and over 261,000 conveyances per day through land ports of entry.
• Yet infrastructure at the ports of entry requires repair and modernization. Government facilities at land border crossings are outdated – with some more than 70 years old, and agencies need access to better technology to more effectively and efficiently manage the border while promoting trade and travel.

The U.S. Citizenship Act Builds Upon Existing DHS Resources

• ICE and CBP received approximately $24 billion in FY23 for overall operations.
• From 2016 to 2023 alone, ICE and CBP budgets increased by over $7 billion.
• While these resources remain in place, the bill directs the provision of new resources where most effective – in the countries that are driving people to our Southern Border and at ports of entry where technology, infrastructure and screening capacity is desperately needed.

The U.S. Citizenship Act provides a framework for a multi-pronged approach to manage the border . The bill:

1. Addresses the root causes of migration from Central America by funding the President’s 4-year plan to increase assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras conditioned on their ability to reduce the corruption, violence, poverty, and famine that now cause people to flee.
2. Createssafe and legal channels for people to seek protection, so they can apply for legal status in Central America instead of making the dangerous journey north.
3. Cracks down on bad actors by enhancing our ability to prosecute individuals involved in smuggling, narcotics and trafficking networks who are responsible for drugs flowing into our country and the exploitation of migrants. It also expands transnational anti-gang task forces in Central America.
4. Modernizes the border through the use of technology that enhances our ability to detect contraband and counter transnational criminal networks since illicit drugs are most likely to be smuggled through legal ports of entry.
5. Protects border communities by providing for additional rescue beacons to prevent needless deaths along the border, requiring agent training and oversight to investigate criminal and administrative misconduct, and requiring department-wide policies governing the use of force.

The U.S. Citizenship Act restores humanity to our immigration system by prioritizing family unity.

Immigrant families belong together and deserve long term stability.

• Nearly 4 million people with approved family-sponsored petitions are waiting for an immigrant visa to become available.
• Approximately 1.6 million undocumented noncitizens in the United States are married to U.S. citizens and approximately 675,000 are married to lawful permanent residents.
• An estimated 4.4 million U.S. citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented.

The U.S. Citizenship Act keeps families together and reunifies those who have been kept apart by an arcane immigration system. The bill:

• Provides an earned path to citizenship for people who contribute to their communities, including their spouses and children. The bill enables individuals who have lived in the United States for years, and in some cases for decades, to keep their family together lawfully and earn the security and stability of U.S. citizenship. The bill establishes a roadmap to citizenship for undocumented noncitizens by allowing them to apply for temporary legal status (“Lawful Prospective Immigrant Status”), with the opportunity to apply for lawful permanent residence (i.e., “green card”) after five years if they pass criminal and national security background checks and pay taxes. Dreamers, recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and agricultural workers who meet specific requirements will be immediately eligible for green cards. Eligible spouses and children are included.
• Reforms the family-based immigration system by clearing the immigrant visa backlogs. The bill recaptures unused family-sponsored visas since FY 1992 and exempts from the numerical limitations: (1) spouses, permanent partners, and children under the age of 21 of lawful permanent residents; (2) derivative spouses and children of principal applicants; (3) individuals who have been waiting to be reunited with their families for more than 10 years; and (4) sons and daughters of Filipino World War II veterans. The bill also alleviates lengthy wait times for individuals from higher-admission states by raising the per-country limits from 7% to 20%.
• Eliminates statutory barriers that keep families apart. The bill repeals the three and ten-year unlawful presence bars and the permanent bar on admission, protects children from aging out of visa eligibility due to processing delays, and ensures that beneficiaries of family-based petitions retain their earliest priority date even if they later become eligible for a visa under a different category.

The U.S. Citizenship Act recognizes all families. The bill:

• Eliminates discrimination in the immigration system experienced by LGBTQ families. The bill creates a new definition of spouse to include permanent partners and eliminates discrimination against LGBTQ+ families by permitting citizens and permanent residents in binational same-sex relationships to sponsor their permanent partners for immigration to the United States and to serve as qualifying relatives for other immigration benefits and purposes. The bill also extends automatic citizenship to children with at least one U.S. citizen parent, regardless of the biological relationship to that parent.
• Protects orphans, widows, and children, and provides equal treatment to stepchildren. The bill expands current protections to ensure that the death of a sponsor does not prevent the immigrant from establishing eligibility for the relevant benefit, prevents the children of fiancés of U.S. citizens from aging out of the visa application and green card processes, and provides equal treatment for stepchildren to qualify as “immediate relatives” as long as they were under age 21 at the time of their parent’s marriage.

The U.S. Citizenship Act strengthens our economy and protects workers

The U.S. economy depends on immigrant workers.

• Immigrants are a significant and growing part of the American labor force. Foreign-born workers make up 17% of the workforce and undocumented workers comprise approximately 4.4%.
• An estimated five million undocumented workers are serving in essential roles as front-line workers. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, these workers risked their lives under trying circumstances to serve and protect American communities.
• Immigrant workers are represented in diverse sectors of the U.S. economy, including service occupations, healthcare, construction, maintenance, production, transportation, management, sales, information technology, and high-tech manufacturing.
• According to the bipartisan New American Economy, approximately 3.2 million immigrants run their own businesses, making up one in every five entrepreneurs in the country. Immigrant-owned businesses employ nearly 8 million American workers and generate $1.3 trillion per year in sales.

Immigration reform boosts our economy.

• Fixing our broken immigration system will boost our economy by addressing labor supply issues, increasing worker productivity, creating more jobs, improving wages, and reducing the deficit.
• According to the 2022 Report of the Council of Economic Advisers, labor supply shortfalls are due in part to long-run demographic trends and declines in labor market participation by adults. Increased immigration, including a pathway to citizenship for undocumented individuals, is critical to increasing the labor supply and counteracting these trends.
• CBO also found that the legislation would have increased the labor force by 3.5 percent within 10 years and 5 percent within 20 years, which would boost capital investment and lead to increasedproductivity and higher average wages.

Immigration reform protects American workers.

• Working people can stand together to demand better wages and stronger worker protections.
• All workers suffer when unscrupulous employers have the ability and power to threaten workers with deportation for exercising their labor rights, and when these employers are not held liable for labor law violations.
• Undocumented workers should be able to exercise their rights without fear of retaliation. That is why a pathway to citizenship for these workers is essential.

The U.S. Citizenship Act stimulates our economy by boosting worker productivity, retaining U.S.-educated STEM graduates, and improving wages. The bill:

• Grows our economy. The bill clears the employment-based immigrant visa backlog and alleviates lengthy wait times for individuals by eliminating employment-based per-country limits. It also makes it easier for foreign students to pursue pathways to stay in the United States after graduation, and increases the annual number of immigrant visas from 10,000 to 40,000 for workers in industries such as dairy, meat, and poultry processing, and caregiving.
• Makes it easier for graduates of U.S. universities with advanced STEM degrees to stay in the United States and contribute their expertise to our competitive advantage. The bill exempts individuals with a doctoral degree in a field involving science, technology, engineering, or mathematics from an accredited United States institution of higher education from the numerical caps on visas so they can remain in the U.S. and strengthen our competitive advantage.
• Stimulates regional economic development. The bill gives DHS authority to establish a five-year pilot program to allow any county or municipality to petition for additional immigrant visas to support the region’s economic development strategy, provided employers in those regions certify there are available jobs and that there are no workers to fill them.

The U.S. Citizenship Act helps level the playing field in the labor market and strengthens worker protections. The bill:

• Protects workers from exploitation and retaliation. The bill creates a commission to ensure that employers have the tools to verify their workers’ employment status and requires DHS and DOL to establish a task force that includes employers, labor, and civil rights organizations to make recommendations to improve the employment verification process while ensuring that the rights of all workers are protected. The bill also strengthens wage protections for farm workers and increases penalties for violations of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
• Holds employers responsible for labor law violations. The bill clarifies that workers, regardless of immigration status, are covered by labor and employment laws and creates a new Labor Law Enforcement Account for the Secretary of Labor to ensure compliance with workplace laws through fines obtained from random audits of employers with a history of significant employment of unauthorized workers or nonimmigrant workers.