WASHINGTON — House lawmakers reintroduced a bill Wednesday that would create a legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. The American Dream and Promise Act of 2025 would also set up citizenship pathways for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure.

What You Need To Know

  • House lawmakers reintroduced a bill Wednesday that would create a legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children

  • The American Dream and Promise Act of 2025 would also set up citizenship pathways for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure

  • The average recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program came to the country at age six and has been in the U.S. for 20 years

  • The American Dream and Promise Act of 2025 would protect and grant eligible Dreamers conditional permanent residence for ten years and cancel removal proceedings; it would also provide a pathway to citizenship for eligible Dreamers by granting them full lawful permanent resident status

“Dreamers are American in every way but on paper,” Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, said in a statement accompanying the reintroduction of a bill that Congress has failed to pass despite multiple attempts. “For decades, they have contributed to and shaped the fabric of America. Yet they are currently denied their place in the American story.”

Garcia was part of a bipartisan coalition of nine lawmakers who reintroduced the bill, including Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Rep. Maria Elvia Salazar, R-Fla.

The average recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program came to the country at age six and has been in the U.S. for 20 years, according to the statement. DACA recipients pay almost $6.2 billion in federal taxes and $3.3 billion in state and local taxes each year.

The Center for American Progress estimates the U.S. economy would grow by $799 billion over the next 10 years if DACA recipients were able to become citizens.

An email to U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement requesting comment was not immediately answered.

The Obama-Biden administration first created DACA in 2012 to allow undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation. An estimated 3.4 million Dreamers currently live in the country.

The American Dream and Promise Act of 2025 would protect and grant eligible Dreamers conditional permanent residence for ten years and cancel removal proceedings. It would also provide a pathway to citizenship for eligible Dreamers and individuals with Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforcement Departure by granting them full lawful permanent resident status and would protect that status while their applications under the American Dream and Promise Act are being processed.

Eligible Dreamers would also be able to access federal financial aid.

“A pathway to citizenship is supported by an overwhelming number of Americans as a just, humane and practical way to manage immigration in the United States," Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights executive director Angelica Salas said in a statement.

CHIRLA is one of 120 organizations supporting the proposed legislation.

Salas championed the legislation as “the counterweight to President Trump’s, and some in Congress’, obsessively cruel, highly expensive and unnecessary attacks on immigrants everywhere.”

While campaigning for president, Trump vowed mass deportations of illegal immigrants. Earlier this month, border czar Tom Homan said ICE arrested about 14,000 people during the president’s first three weeks in office.