U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar’s legislation, dubbed the Dignity Act in partnership with a Florida Republican, also seeks to change asylum processes.
that immigrant rights activists and Democrats decried as punitive and politically unviable.
Congress has tried and failed for decades to pass comprehensive border and immigration legislation. Pressure increased last year as federal agents apprehended a record number of migrants and protections for Dreamers — migrants who arrived illegally as children — came under. A pandemic-era provision that let federal forces expel asylum-seekers also expired this month.
The bill would also create processing centers for migrants in Mexico, Central America and South America, where they could be screened in advance for asylum eligibility. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Arizona, and Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, crafted a bipartisan border framework late last year that would pair a path to citizenship for migrants who arrived as children and reductions in work visa backlogs with greater funding for border enforcement and extended expulsion authority for asylum-seekers.
Escobar said now that the Republican border bill passed the House, “I hope it frees up a lot of moderate Republicans to say, you know, I voted for what House leadership presented to us, but it's not going to go anywhere in the Senate.” Escobar said she had reservations at first about asylum seekers not having access to due process at the border if their hearings were expedited, saying she hoped to address the concern by offering loan forgiveness for legal representation for migrants.
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