Political Watch: July 31, 2025

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• On July 25, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, announced legislation to expand a pathway to lawful permanent residency for millions of long-term U.S. residents, according to Padilla’s office. Section 249 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as the Registry, gives the secretary of homeland security the discretion to register certain individuals for lawful permanent resident status if they have been in the country since a certain date and meet other requirements. Section 249 was first codified in 1929, and Congress has modified it four times, most recently during the Reagan Administration in 1986. No changes have been made since 1986, and the cutoff date for eligibility remains Jan. 1, 1972. Padilla’s Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929 would update the existing Registry statute of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by adjusting the Registry date to meet current circumstances so that an immigrant may qualify to apply for lawful permanent resident status if they have lived in the U.S. continuously for at least seven years before filing an application, do not have a criminal record, and meet all other current eligibility requirements to receive a green card. This update would provide a pathway to a green card for more than 8 million people, including Dreamers, forcibly displaced citizens, children of long-term visa holders, essential workers, and skilled workforce members, such as H-1B visa holders. According to estimates from a FWD.us Inc. report, if the undocumented individuals covered in this bill eventually became citizens, they would contribute approximately $121 billion to the U.S. economy annually and about $35 billion in taxes. “Americans know there’s a better path forward than the Trump administration’s cruel scapegoating of hardworking immigrants and fearmongering of California communities,” Padilla said in a July 25 statement. “We believe that if you’ve lived here for over seven years, paid taxes for years, contributed to your community for years, and you don’t have a criminal record, then you deserve a pathway to legalization. My bill is a common-sense fix to our outdated immigration system and the same kind of reform that Republican President Ronald Reagan embraced four decades ago, calling it a ‘matter of basic fairness.’” Padilla added that the legislation “creates no new bureaucracies or agencies—it’s simply an update to a long-standing pathway to reflect today’s reality and provide a fair shot at the American Dream for millions of Dreamers, TPS holders, and highly skilled workers who have faced delays and uncertainty for decades.” 

• U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) recently urged U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke L. Rollins to ensure the agency delivers disaster assistance from the American Relief Act of 2025 to California farmers. In the July 23 letter, Schiff emphasized the importance of ensuring that disaster assistance is fairly distributed among states, including for California agricultural communities, to get the help they need to recover from natural disasters. “The natural disasters that California faced in 2023 and 2024 significantly impacted crop yields, damaged infrastructure, and contributed to the spread of pests,” Schiff wrote. “Disaster assistance for California producers would provide direct financial relief to farmers and facilitate the replacement of infrastructure and equipment, ultimately ensuring the continued production of crops to support the domestic food supply.” Secretary Rollins and USDA leadership previously made verbal and written commitments that they will work to fairly distribute USDA federal assistance, according to Schiff’s office.

This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 10, 2025.