The New Democrat Coalition's Border Security and Immigration Working Group, led by Representative Gabe Vasquez, unveiled the New Democrat Border Security and Immigration Framework, a comprehensive path forward for Congress to secure the border and reform the immigration system.

Under that mission, with Representatives Juan Vargas, Nydia Velazquez, Delia Ramirez, and Angie Craig as co-sponsors, Vasquez introduced the Strengthening Our Workforce Act.

As she explained, the goal of this bill is to end the chaos of mass deportations that is harming the income of small businesses and local economies across the country.

The Secure Growth Initiative, a national coalition of small businesses, supports this legislation. In August, the Initiative endorsed the Dignity Act, which also addresses providing undocumented individuals the opportunity to obtain permanent legal status. The bill offers foreign nationals working in essential sectors, such as agriculture, healthcare, and emergency workers, a path to permanent legal status, providing much-needed stability to the workers who form the backbone of the U.S. economy. “Those who work hard, play by the rules, and play a vital role in our economy should never be forced to live in the shadows or in fear of mass deportation,” Vasquez said. “These individuals do us good, contributing to the social fabric of our communities and putting in long hours to feed our families, care for our loved ones, and keep the economy running. It’s time we do them right by offering them the dignified path to legalization they deserve and that American businesses need. This is about humanity, fairness, and the long-term strength of our economy.”

The Strengthening Our Workforce Act grants two-year conditional status to noncitizens who meet strict criteria and work in critical sectors such as healthcare, energy, agriculture, emergency response, education, hospitality, construction, home health care, and childcare.

To receive conditional lawful permanent residence, according to the proposed legislation, workers must:

Workers who meet these strict criteria and complete two years of conditional status qualify for lawful permanent residence.

For his part, Representative Juan Vargas insisted that “Right now, Trump is implementing an uncontrolled anti-immigrant offensive. Families fear being separated. People who have spent decades living and working in this country are afraid to drop their children off at school, go to their jobs, and move on with their lives. It is unacceptable.”

“As the proud son of Mexican immigrants, I know that immigrants strengthen our country. It is time to fix our broken immigration system and create better pathways to citizenship. I’m proud to help introduce this legislation that brings us closer to an immigration system centered on humanity, dignity, and fairness,” he said. “The Strengthening Our Workforce Act builds on the growing bipartisan momentum in Congress to end mass deportations that are causing labor shortages and lost consumer spending in the immigrant community, factors that are driving down small business revenues,” said Frank Knapp Jr., managing director of the Secure Growth Initiative, a national small business coalition representing more than 100,000 small business voices. “We are proud to support Congressman Vasquez’s legislation and other bills that address our coalition’s concerns.”

“It is encouraging to see lawmakers offer a solution to the significant challenges that current immigration policies are creating for our nation’s small businesses,” said David Chase, vice president of the Small Business Majority, which leads the Secure Growth Initiative, a national small business coalition. “Immigrants are a vital and irreplaceable component of the American small business ecosystem, and businesses will have a much better opportunity to succeed when undocumented individuals can obtain permanent residency, as the Strengthening Our Workforce Act allows.”