The bipartisan immigration framework floated among senators in Washington is still on the table, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Spectrum News on Thursday, and the new GOP leadership in the House will have to be a key part of renewed discussions this year.

What You Need To Know

  • The bipartisan immigration framework floated among senators in Washington is still on the table, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Spectrum News on Thursday, and the new GOP leadership in the House will have to be part of renewed discussions

  • The framework was expected to include measures to tighten border security, alter the asylum system and create a path to citizenship for undocumented people who migrated to the U.S. as children, but it never materialized as legislation in late 2022

  • Tillis said the effort he's working on with Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is restarting, and it will require buy-in from House GOP leadership

  • Both senators traveled with a bipartisan delegation to the border this week, stopping in El Paso, Texas and Yuma, Arizona

The framework – which was expected to include measures to tighten border security, alter the asylum system and create a path to citizenship for undocumented people who migrated to the U.S. as children – did not fall apart at the end of 2022, but rather faced the 117th Congress’s expiration date, Tillis said.

“It was more a function of time,” he told Spectrum News. “But at the end of the day, we didn't cancel the effort. We simply ran out of time in that Congress.”

“We simply have to continue the dialogue in the new Congress,” he added. 

Asked whether he’d gotten any buy-in from House Republican colleagues on immigration reform so far, Tillis said he expected to start having discussions with them soon to “come up with a framework that they’re comfortable with.”

“I think we have to work very closely with the House leadership … to have a place that they're comfortable with,” he added.

Tillis worked on the immigration framework with Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona at the end of last year, but it didn’t materialize as legislation.

Both senators traveled with a bipartisan delegation to the border this week, stopping in El Paso, Texas and Yuma, Arizona along with Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., James Lankford, R-Okla., Chris Coons, D-Del., Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

In a roundtable with local television station Arizona’s Family, Sinema expressed optimism about the group’s motivation to pass immigration reform.

“I think all of us acknowledge that this is a very, very difficult issue,” she said “This is a group of senators who have a really great track record of getting things done.”

Democrats want to see the creation of a path to permanent status for Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Only some have temporary protections through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

But even with border security measures baked in, it’s questionable whether House Republicans would sign on to such reforms, which could offer legal status to as many as two million Dreamers.

The way Tillis framed it on Thursday, any citizenship measures are completely dependent on border security and asylum fixes coming first.

“All of that had to be on the table before I'll have any discussion about a path to citizenship for any population,” he said.

His framework would include “sealing” the border to restrict arrivals to ports of entry and requiring people to seek asylum in a safe third country before claiming protection in the U.S.

Any path to citizenship for Dreamers or other limited populations would be a “multi-year process,” he said.

Qualified people “would have to be gainfully employed, in school, serving in the military, no criminal record, that's the bar that would be set,” Tillis laid out.

“They're going to be held to very strict standards over the years that would be required for them to ultimately get a green card.”