Senate Discusses Dream Act on DACA Anniversary.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will analyze this Tuesday the bill American Dream and Promise Act of 2021 (HR6), which would give a path to citizenship to millions of immigrants , including the "dreamers."

The hearing date coincides with the ninth anniversary of the announcement of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) , a program by which then-President Barack Obama (2009-2017) protected hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants from deportation. who came to the country as children.

According to the committee, the hearing “will highlight the need for the Senate to adopt the legislation passed by the House (of Representatives),” where the bill was approved last March with bipartisan suppor

Among the people who will appear before the committee are León Rodríguez, who was director of the Immigration and Citizenship Service (USCIS) during the Obama presidency, and the "dreamer" Manuel Bernal, who works in the emergency room of a Chicago hospital. .

So will Joseph Edlow, deputy director of USCIS with Donald Trump in the White House (2017-2021) , and Michelle Root, mother of Sarah Rae-Ann Root, a 21-year-old girl who was fatally run over in Nebraska by an undocumented Honduran.

The fifth person who plans to appear is nurse Rony Ponthieux from Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, protected by Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and therefore could also aspire to United States citizenship if HR6 is approved in the Senate.

The HR6 bill could open a path to citizenship to about 4.5 million "dreamers", "Tepesians" and protected by the so-called DED (Deffered Enforced Departure) or "Deferred Mandatory Departure" , according to Migration Policy estimates. Institute (MPI).

The Upper House Judiciary Committee is chaired by Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who has unsuccessfully sponsored measures similar to the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021 for the past 20 years.

Durbin told Efe last week that the country "is ready" for Congress to approve HR6 and that it already has "five or six" of the ten Republican votes it needs to pass the bill.

This committee includes at least two of the Republicans that Illinois could count on: Texan John Cornyn and South Carolina Lindsey Graham , who presented with Durbin last February and on the sidelines of HR6 a new version of the Dream Act for the one that the two have been fighting for years and that would give citizenship to the "dreamers."

In the Senate there is a tie between Democrats and Republicans, with 50 seats each of the two parties, but HR6 needs the support of at least 10 conservatives, something difficult to achieve despite the fact that the polls show a majority support to give the citizenship to “dreamers” and “tepesianos”.

In addition to HR6, the bill for the Modernization of the Agricultural Workforce (HR 1603) is waiting in the Senate, also approved in March in the Lower House and that would give permanent residence and work permits for hundreds of thousands of workers employed in the farming.

Biden's flagship immigration project also awaits, a comprehensive reform that would provide a path to citizenship for some 11 million undocumented immigrants , although this broader option lacks the sympathy received by the "dreamers", "Tepesianos" and peasants who they have proven "essential" during the covid-19 pandemic, and he has a bleaker future in the Senate.