DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2025

Applicants pay at least $1,000 up front. Another $1,000 comes with each two-year check-in, until $7,000 is paid. People who already had temporary protected status do not pay.

This 1 percent tax sits on top of regular income tax. It goes into a new fund that first covers the bill's costs, then pays down the national debt.

Anyone could ask to block their Social Security number from being used in job checks. Parents could do the same for a child's number.

Participants owe no Social Security or Medicare payroll tax while in the program. Other workers still pay both.

Participants agree to skip federal benefits that are based on income. Aid received by their U.S.-citizen children does not count against them.

Employers must confirm each new hire through a federal system within three business days. The largest firms start six months after the law passes; the smallest get 24 months.

Within 180 days, the government must raise the lowest pay rate for mid-level Border Patrol agents. Customs officer pay would be matched to it.

Program payments and H-1B visa fees would pay for apprenticeships at small and mid-sized firms. Grants also cover childcare, transportation, and tools for trainees.

A worker fired because the system made a mistake could sue only under the Federal Tort Claims Act. No group of workers could bring a case together.

Foreign students who work in the U.S. after graduation pay no payroll tax today. That break would end for those work periods.

Agents could not make routine immigration arrests at schools, hospitals, places of worship, courthouses, shelters, funerals, or protests. Emergencies and pre-approved actions are still allowed.

People here since January 2021 who arrived as minors could get conditional green cards. School, work, or military service makes the status permanent.

What people write on these applications, and on old DACA requests, is walled off from deportation officers. Fraud, serious crimes, and national security are the exceptions.

Today a U.S. citizen parent must have lived here five years to pass citizenship to a child born abroad. That requirement would be deleted.

Two asylum officers would decide cases at the border campuses. A denial can be appealed once to a different pair of officers, but not to a judge.

The first time, agents take the person's fingerprints and warn them to use an official crossing. A second time puts them on the fast-track removal path.

Consular and immigration officers could demand DNA proof of a family tie. New rules could make DNA testing standard for certain visa types.

Undocumented people would have 12 months to apply for one of these programs or leave. Those who leave on their own escape the usual three- and ten-year reentry bans.

The basic penalty would be up to 10 years. It climbs with the person's record, reaching 30 years for murder, rape, kidnapping, terrorism, or three felonies.

The most a noncitizen can get for voting in a federal election would rise from one year to five.

Judges would have to impose at least 25 years, up from 15. A second, lower tier also rises, from 10 years to 25.

Telling someone where officers are, meaning to help them break immigration, drug, farm, or money laws, would become a federal crime.

An employer who uses the system in good faith could not be sued by a job applicant or worker. The government would need clear and convincing proof to say otherwise.

Farm and fish-processing work gets 30 months, versus 6 to 24 for everyone else. Employers with 50 or fewer workers can also ask for a six-month delay.

Wages paid to foreign students in post-graduation training carry no Social Security tax today. Employers would start owing their share.

People whose petition has waited more than 10 years could pay $20,000 to become exempt from the yearly caps. An employer or other private party may pay it for them.

The department could set aside any legal requirement it says slows barrier or surveillance work, including upkeep. Congress is told within seven days after the fact.

The department's inspector general must visit each border campus without warning at least twice a year. The yearly compliance report goes on a public website.

Members of Congress could enter any immigration holding facility for oversight without telling anyone first. Officials could not clean up or change a site before the visit.

Fast-track removal and fear screening interviews must be recorded on audio or video. The recording becomes part of the case file.

A new border security advisory committee is exempt from the Federal Advisory Committee Act. That law normally requires open meetings and public records.

Homeland Security could name a designee to build and operate the work-check system. That designee may be a private company.

Lawyers who spend four years providing legal help at a border campus would get 75 percent of their law school loans erased.

Cubans let into the country on their own recognizance by January 31, 2023 would count as paroled. That makes them eligible under the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Within 30 days, officials must open a program for Dominicans with approved family petitions. They could be let in while they wait for a visa.

Using, carrying, or having a firearm while smuggling or helping people enter illegally would add up to 10 years. It stacks on top of the base sentence.