The Build Back Better Act could receive a vote as early as this week.
As a House vote on the massive Democratic spending bill approaches, Republicans are sounding the alarm about sweeping immigration measures that have frequently been overlooked amid broader debates about the cost of the legislation and infighting among Democrats.
The Build Back Better Act is expected to receive a vote in the House as early as this week, as Democratic leadership seeks to advance the legislation alongside a bipartisan infrastructure bill.
The spending bill includes broad provisions on health care, child care, climate change and taxes – and has seen broad and united Republican opposition. But, as the vote nears, lawmakers are seeking also to point to potentially more consequential immigration provisions in the legislation.
Perhaps the biggest component of the bill on immigration is an amnesty provision for millions of illegal immigrants – which is still in flux due to rules on the Senate side involving the budget reconciliation process and what can be allowed by the chamber’s parliamentarian.
In its current form in the House text as of last week, it would grant legal status to illegal immigrants present in the country before 2010, by changing the date of a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that granted it to anyone in the country illegally before 1972.
Democrats have also mulled full-blown pathways to citizenship for groups of immigrants who came in as recently as 2020, but they have been shot down by the parliamentarian multiple times – although some progressive lawmakers in the House have urged the party to ignore the parliamentarian completely.
In the Senate currently, Democrats are working on a “Plan C” that would involve giving humanitarian parole – used typically on a case-by-case basis – to an estimated 8 million illegal immigrants.
By Adam Shaw for FOX NEWS
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