DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2025

Pairs tougher border enforcement and nationwide E-Verify with legal status for Dreamers and a $7,000, 7-year program for other undocumented immigrants.

The details

Combines aggressive border enforcement with broad legalization in a single ~40,000-word bill. On the enforcement side, it authorizes more border barriers, surveillance technology, and DHS waiver authority over federal laws that slow construction. It mandates E-Verify nationwide for all employers, phased in over 6-30 months by company size. Illegal reentry would be punishable by up to 30 years for repeat offenders. The maximum penalty for noncitizen voting rises from 1 to 5 years. Mandatory minimums for child sex trafficking rise from 15 years to 25. It also creates new federal crimes for tipping off smugglers about law-enforcement locations. On the asylum side, it builds at least three 'humanitarian campuses' on the southern border. There, two-asylum-officer panels would issue final decisions within roughly 60 days. Judicial review would be limited. Anyone who fails to enter at a port of entry twice would face an automatic expedited-removal track. On the legalization side, it offers a path to permanent residence for Dreamers (people brought to the U.S. as children before 2021). A new 'Dignity Program' lets undocumented immigrants present since 2020 pay $7,000 in restitution over seven years. That money goes into a new fund that first underwrites the bill's costs, then pays down the national debt. Participants must give up access to means-tested federal benefits, maintain health insurance, and stay legally in 7-year renewable nonimmigrant status. The bill raises per-country green card caps from 7 percent to 15 percent and clears family-based and employment-based backlogs older than 10 years. It gives immigration judges discretion to keep U.S.-citizen families together and creates a new 90-day family-visit visa. H-1B fees would be redirected toward apprenticeships for American workers in small and mid-sized businesses. Routine immigration enforcement would be barred at schools, hospitals, churches, and courthouses except in defined emergencies. Total appropriations include $2 billion per year through 2030 for ports of entry, plus an optional $20,000 'premium processing' fee for backlogged petitioners.