Sponsors (214)
Introduced February 26, 2025 by Sylvia Garcia · Last progress February 26, 2025
The bill offers broad new pathways to lawful permanent residence, work authorization, family‑unity waivers, and integration supports for many longstanding residents, but pairs those benefits with eligibility bars, filing and presence strictures, background checks, and fees/surcharges that could exclude, delay, or expose vulnerable applicants and create administrative uncertainty.
Eligible longtime residents — including many DACA recipients, and qualified TPS/DED holders and other longtime young-adults — can obtain conditional or lawful permanent resident status and are protected from removal while their applications are pending, creating a clear pathway to immigration stability.
Eligible applicants can obtain employment authorization during adjudication and may remove conditional basis through education, military service, or sustained employment, improving economic integration and ability to earn income.
Parents and families facing inadmissibility issues can access family‑unity and humanitarian waivers in many cases, increasing chances that families remain together.
Applicants with certain criminal convictions or specified national‑security grounds can be permanently barred from relief and denied waivers in some pathways, risking removal and family separation for affected individuals.
Many applicants (especially low‑income immigrants) still face upfront application and processing costs — fees are set up to $1,140 (or $495 on some routes) plus a $25 surcharge in some cases — creating a meaningful financial barrier for some.
Strict continuous‑presence and filing deadlines (e.g., multi‑year presence rules, 90/180‑day departure limits, and a 3‑year filing window for one pathway) can disqualify otherwise eligible people who traveled, sought care, or missed the deadline, excluding vulnerable applicants.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Creates a pathway to conditional and then permanent lawful permanent resident status for people who entered as children and for certain TPS/DED holders who meet presence, education, and admissibility rules.
Creates a new, conditional pathway to lawful permanent resident (green card) status for people who entered the United States as children and for certain people who held Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). Eligible applicants must meet physical-presence, age-at-entry, admissibility and conduct rules, and education or enrollment requirements; the Secretary of Homeland Security (or Attorney General in some cases) may grant limited waivers for humanitarian, family-unity, or public-interest reasons. The bill requires biometrics and background checks, sets an application filing window for TPS/DED beneficiaries, allows a processing fee (up to $1,140) with exemptions, and generally protects applicants from removal while their eligibility is being decided.