María Elvira Salazar believes Donald Trump could still warm up to Dignity Act, path to legal residency

U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar believes President Donald Trump may yet come around to allowing legal residency for longtime immigrants.

At a press conference in Washington promoting her new book, “Dignity Not Citizenship,” Salazar acknowledged the uphill path for her bipartisan Dignity Act (HR 4393) in the current political climate. But she suggested that one person could change that.

“I have no doubt that Trump will be for immigration what (Abraham) Lincoln was for slavery and (Ronald) Reagan was for communism,” Salazar said. “He’s going to fix it.”

Many are skeptical. Trump has made mass deportations a central tenet of his agenda since the start of his second term.

But Trump in a New York Times interview made clear, while saying he has problems with groups like Somali immigrants, that he doesn’t want to stop all immigration.

“I just want people that love our country. It’s very simple. I want people that love our country,” Trump said. “I want people that respect our country, respect the laws of our country, and I want people that can embrace our country.”

Salazar saw hope in those remarks. She has also welcomed the support of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who sponsored the Dignity Act, which currently has 16 Democratic co-sponsors and 15 Republican backers besides herself. Two of those — Republican U.S. Reps. Dan Newhouse of Washington and Democratic U.S. Rep. Dave Evans of Colorado — spoke in favor of the bill at her press conference.

Evans said his grandparents were Mexican immigrants, and he knows most are coming to the country for opportunity. “I know how important it is for hardworking folks to be able to have the same path that may abuelo had, to be able to earn that American dream,” Evans said.

Newhouse said immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy, and need a path to do so legally. “We all know that we depend on immigration in this country, but we also know that we want legal immigration,” he said.

But there are no more Democratic sponsors than Republican ones, in part because the bill has no pathway to citizenship. Salazar defended that approach.

“Do not talk to me about this path to citizenship anymore, because that has been on the Democratic side for 30 years, promising something that they never do,” she said. “So let’s be real. Let’s give something that can be given, which is dignity, dignified life, with no shame or fear.”

Her proposed Dignity Program would allow undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for at least five years to obtain legal status by agreeing to pay $7,000 over seven years, repay back taxes and pay 1% of their salary to the U.S. Treasury. The program would only be open to those with a clean criminal record.

But her proposal comes as many call for limits even on existing legal visas. Gov. Ron DeSantis has called for state universities to stop giving H-1B visas to international employees and crack down on the program overall. Every major Republican candidate to succeed DeSantis has pushed to crack down on issuing any new H-1B visas.

Salazar said that’s unsurprising because the current immigration system is broken. She said her bill could help address that.

“We need to fix the H-1Bs, and we need to fix the catch and release, and we need to fix the asylum system,” she said.

“We need to fix everything. So when we sit at the table, we’re going to be able to then have that conversation and fix everything at the same time. We just need to get it going. It’s been 40 years since this issue has not been touched.”