With the future of a program that protects young undocumented immigrants from deportation in limbo, senators on Friday introduced legislation to give them a path to legal residency.
It marks the formal start of the push in this Congress to enact protections for those known as dreamers, people who were brought to the United States as children. The legislation, introduced by Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), has been proposed year after year without success.

The Dream Act, as the bill is known, would allow people who were brought to the United States as children and have a high school education and college enrollment, employment or military service to earn residency and, eventually, citizenship.

The effort is urgent for hundreds of thousands of young adults whose future is in question as a challenge to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that now protects them moves through the courts. The program is also known as DACA.
But any immigration legislation faces a steep climb in a split Congress. It has been more than two decades since Durbin first introduced the act; in the last session of Congress, a version was passed in the House in 2021 but was unsuccessful in the Senate.
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Many dreamers are protected by DACA, which allows them to work legally and protects them from deportation. But the future of DACA, which has long been challenged by Republicans who say President Barack Obama overstepped his authority in creating the program, is uncertain: A court case initiated in Texas challenging the program could result in an end to DACA.

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