Path to Citizenship

The estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally could obtain “registered provisional immigrant status” six months after enactment of the bill as long as certain requirements are met:
The Homeland Security Department must develop border security and fencing plans, per the specifications set out in the bill. (See Border Control, below.)
Undocumented immigrants must have arrived in the U.S. prior to Dec. 31, 2011, and maintained continuous physical presence since then.
Undocumented immigrants must have not had a felony conviction or three or more misdemeanors.
Upon payment of a $500 fine, the provisional legal status lasts six years and is renewable for another six years for $500.
People in provisional legal status could work and travel in the U.S. but would not be eligible for most federal benefits, including health care and welfare.
People deported for noncriminal reasons can apply to re-enter in provisional status if they have a spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, or if they had been brought to the U.S. as a child.
After 10 years in provisional status, immigrants can seek a green card and lawful permanent resident status if they are current on their taxes and pay a $1,000 fine, have maintained continuous physical presence in the U.S., meet work requirements and learn English. Also the border triggers must have been met, and all people waiting to immigrate through the legal system as of the date of enactment of the legislation must have been dealt with.
People brought to the country as youths would be able to get green cards in five years, and citizenship immediately thereafter.

Border Control

Certain border security requirements must be achieved within 10 years before any undocumented immigrant can obtain a permanent resident green card. These include:
The number of Border Patrol agents stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border will be roughly doubled to at least 38,405.
Seven hundred miles of pedestrian fencing along the border must be completed, which will require approximately 350 new miles of fencing.
A host of new security measures and technologies in specified locations along the border will be installed. These include specific numbers of surveillance towers, camera systems, ground sensors, radiation detectors, mobile surveillance systems, drones, helicopters, airborne radar systems, planes and ships.
A system for all employers to verify electronically their workers’ legal status will be implemented.
A new electronic system to track people leaving the nation’s airports and seaports must be set up.
The border security improvements are designed to achieve 100 percent surveillance of the border with Mexico and ensure that 90 percent of would-be crossers are caught or turned back. If the goals of a 90 percent effectiveness rate and continuous surveillance on the border are not met within five years, a Southern Border Security Commission made up of border-state governors and others would determine how to achieve them.
Border security spending in the bill totals around $46 billion.

H-1B high-skilled visas


The cap on the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers would be immediately raised from 65,000 a year to 110,000 a year, with 25,000 more set aside for people with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. school. The cap could go as high as 180,000 a year depending on demand.
New protections would crack down on companies that use H-1B visas to train workers in the U.S. only to ship them back overseas.
Immigrants with certain extraordinary abilities, such as professors, researchers, multinational executives and athletes, would be exempted from existing green-card limits. So would graduates of U.S. universities with job offers and degrees in science, technology, engineering or math.
A startup visa would be made available to foreign entrepreneurs seeking to come to the U.S. to start a company.
A new merit visa, for a maximum of 250,000 people a year, would award points to prospective immigrants based on their education, employment, length of residence in the U.S. and other considerations. Those with the most points would earn the visas.
The bill would eliminate the government’s Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which randomly awards 55,000 visas to immigrants from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States, so that more visas can be awarded for employment and merit ties.

Guest worker “W-visa” program


A new W visa would allow up to 200,000 low-skilled workers a year into the country for jobs in construction, long-term care, hospitality and other industries.
A new agriculture worker visa program would be established to replace the existing program. Agriculture workers already here illegally, who’ve worked in the industry at least two years, could qualify in another five years for green cards if they stay in the industry.

Changes to family visa program


Under current law, U.S. citizens can sponsor spouses, children and siblings to come to the U.S., with limits on some categories. The bill would bar citizens from sponsoring their siblings and would allow them to sponsor married sons and daughters only if those children are under age 31.
Legal permanent residents can currently sponsor spouses and children, but the numbers are limited. The bill eliminates that limit.

Employment verification


Within four years, all employers must implement E-Verify, a program to verify electronically their workers’ legal status. As part of that, noncitizens would be required to show photo ID that must match with a photo in the E-Verify system.