One of the early surprises from President Joe Biden is that he has signaled he’ll make big moves on immigration—quickly. This suggests Biden and Democrats are not going to be cowed by 1990s-style political constraints on this issue, even during a pandemic, when it might be very easily demagogued.
This requires Democrats in Congress to get started on the issue as well. So what’s that going to look like?
Senate Democrats are planning to move quickly with an initial bill legalizing the “dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children. A senior Democratic leadership aide tells me that Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who will chair the Judiciary Committee, plans to move a bill within the first 100 days.
This bill would be a version of the Dream Act, which would provide a path to legalization and eventually citizenship for around 2 million dreamers. Many of the dreamers cannot pursue normal life paths in education and/or employment, even though they were brought here through no fault of their own and have largely grown up in the United States.
While some dreamers have executive protection against deportation from a program created by President Barack Obama, that can’t be relied upon and isn’t stable.
That’s why full legalization is needed. Such a bill might also legalize hundreds of thousands of immigrants with temporary protected status, who also have deep roots in the United States and are here lawfully, though that remains to be determined.
The fact that Democrats plan to move quickly on dreamers reflects a bunch of lessons that were learned the hard way, producing a shift in thinking. The key insight is that after years spent trying to do a large comprehensive immigration reform bill, it’s clear this approach has failed.
The basic thinking is that chasing Republicans with promises of enforcement money to get them to back immigration policies they think their base will hate is largely folly; they rarely seem to be willing to buck the base in the end.
A policy like legalizing the dreamer could conceivably win Republicans. After all, some GOP senators who just won re-election, such as John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, did so while advocating for this, and others, such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma, have also backed the idea.
The idea here is to start right out of the gate on immigration by doing something that would win overwhelming public support. The dreamers are highly sympathetic figures, and, crucially, their plight is well understood by the public. If Democrats pass something like this fast, and Republicans who sign on get public kudos and face less blowback from the right than they fear, it could clear space for more movement later.
Right now, Democrats need to win 10 Republican senators to pass such legislation. If legislation on popular items such as this starts getting filibustered routinely by Republicans, it might build a case for doing away with the filibuster.
But Kerri Talbot, deputy director of the Immigration Hub, tells me that 10 Republican senators might be within reach for something like the Dream Act.
“We think four or five already support it, and there are about another eight who take a common-sense approach and would be willing to talk to us,” Talbot tells me.
“Biden just won,” Talbot continued. “We want to focus on what’s urgent and can be done now.” And these policies would also have the added benefit of being very popular, which is not a bad way for a new administration to get underway.