Thread by @ReichlinMelnick

We finally have the U.S. Citizenship Act Bill Text! I'm going to go through some portions of the bill right now and highlight some of the major changes and improvements that it would make to our immigration system.

Thread:

https://twitter.com/nicolenarea/status/1362466589048791046

First the Bill makes a series of promises changes to the way we talk about immigrants and immigration law.

Gone would be the term "alien" and in its place is "noncitizen."

Also gone would be the term "alienage," replaced with "noncitizenship."

Now we get to the "earned path to citizenship" for all undocumented immigrants present in the United States on January 1, 2021.

Under this bill, anyone who satisfies the eligibility criteria for a new "lawful prospective immigrant status" can come out of the shadows.

So, what are the eligibility criteria for becoming a "lawful prospective immigrant status"? Those are in a new INA 245G and include:

- Payment of the appropriate fees
- Continuous presence after January 1, 2021
- Not having certain criminal record (but there's a waiver)

After a person has been in "lawful prospective immigrant status" for at least 5 years, they can apply for a green card, so long as they still pass background checks and have paid back any taxes they are required to do so by law.

However! Some groups don't have to wait 5 years.

Specifically, the bill incorporates the Dream Act, the American Promise Act, and the Agricultural Workers Act.

People who qualify or have DACA, who have TPS, and who have been farmworkers for at least five years, can apply directly for a green card with the 5 year wait.

There ARE some individuals who are present on visas who would be able to apply for "lawful prospective immigrant status," including:

- Spouses/children of qualified individuals
- H-2As
- Anyone who has "has engaged in essential critical infrastructure labor or services'"

Going back to the criminal bars, first the law excludes those who are inadmissible for pretty much all criminal-related grounds of inadmissibility, or any felony, or 3 misdemeanors (excluding most cannibis-related offenses).

However! There are waivers.

Specifically most of the criminal-related inadmissibility-related grounds are waivable, although not all of them. Even some felonies (but not all) would be waivable if they had occurred at least 10 years in the past (5 for misdemeanors) and there have been no new convictions.

Importantly, anyone who was facially eligible for this new status could NOT be deported while they went through the process.

I'm going to take a break on this thread now because there is a LOT here and otherwise this thread is going to be 500 tweets long.

Will come back to the bill in a little bit later.

Back to the bill! There's a whole lot of provisions about judicial review and challenges to the system of implementing the new path to the system which I'm going to skip, because frankly it's only a tiny few people who will care enough to dig into it (pages 58-61, folks).

Continuing with the path to citizenship, the bill would allow anyone who applies for the status to work legally in the interim while the government processed the application—which given the number of applicants could be a long time.

Moving now to the changes to the legal immigration system! First, we have the expansion of "V visas" to any family-sponsored immigrants, allowing them to come to the US in the meantime, rather than wait decades outside the United States for the visa to become available.

Next, we have a HUGE provision redefining what a "conviction" is under immigration law.

It would exclude any convictions which were "dismissed, expunged, deferred, annulled, invalidated, withheld, or vacated"—all of which currently count to block people.

The bill also resurrects an old provision of immigration law killed decades ago called "judicial recommendations against removal."

These allow a criminal court judge to declare that a person's conviction should not provide grounds to deport them—with ICE allowed to weigh in.

For those interested in crimmigration issues, the bill also expands the definition of a "petty offense" that doesn't provide grounds for deportation, expanding it to two offenses, not just one.

Another very important provision restores a general waiver for most grounds of deportability and inadmissibility, that would apply both in immigration court and for the adjudication of benefits.

This would restore authority killed in 1996 by a "tough on crime" Congress.