Bipartisan support is growing for legislation aimed at granting permanent residency to so-called "documented Dreamers," children who came to the U.S. legally as child dependants of parents with work visas. 

Pragnya Vella, a "documented Dreamer" living in Wisconsin, was two years old when her family left India for new opportunities in America.

"My entire childhood was kind of spent moving around. I lived in California, Ohio, Colorado, New Jersey, and New York," Vella said. "And this is all because my parents — it was hard for them to get a full time job because of their immigration status."

Her parents continue to live and work legally in the U.S. under a temporary visa that has to be renewed every three years. But even that can create challenges. When the family visited India when Pragnya was 9, they could not all return to the U.S. together because the visa was in the process of being renewed.

"I thought this was only going to be for a couple of days. But then the days turned into weeks, and then the weeks turned into months, and then I had to spend my tenth birthday and my fifth-grade graduation without my mom and my sister," she recounted.

Now living in Wisconsin, the family still faces challenges because of their immigration status. Pragnya, a junior at Sun Prairie West High School, was accepted to become a research assistant at the University of Chicago this summer, only to see the offer revoked.

"A couple of months later, I got a three sentence email saying that I would not be able to do it anymore because it's a paid position, and I wouldn't be able to volunteer for a paid position because that's illegal," Vella said.

"I never really thought about the situation as something that could be solved," she added. "And so, my mom sent me this Instagram post about the America's Children Act and this organization called Improve the Dream that was trying to get the legislation for America's Children Act passed."

Vella reached out and shared her story with Dip Patel, the founder of Improve the Dream, a documented Dreamer advocacy group.

This month, Patel rallied oustide of the U.S. Capitol seeking passage of a bill providing a pathway to citizenship for about a quarter of a million foreign-born children who came to the U.S. legally with their parents, just like Vella, but must self-deport if they have not obtained a visa of their own when they reach 21.

"What it does is it would ensure that anyone who was brought here as a child legally has been raised here, has been here for 10 years, and graduated from an American university would have the opportunity to adjust to permanent residency," said Patel. 

While the bill does have bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, it had similar support in the last Congress and never made it to the floor for a vote.

Vella said the bill isn't perfect, but hopes Congress can coalesce around finally pushing it across the finish line this time.

"It's definitely a start because I know that there's a lot of problems in our immigration system, and there's really no other organizations or legislation being passed to help people like me," she said.