Lofgren joins Democratic representatives in proposing immigration reform.

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, announced a proposal to create a path to citizenship on July 25. The bill, unveiled at a conference at the Watsonville Civic Plaza, isn’t reinventing the wheel, but rather updating existing legislation.

Lofgren, along with Grace Meng, D-New York; Adriano Espaillat, D-New York; and Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, D-Illinois, reintroduced the Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929 or H.R. 4696. It would update the Immigration and Nationality Act, also known as the registry, by changing the cutoff date for permanent residency.

The registry provision would allow immigrants who have resided in the United States for several years to apply for residency if they have a clean record.

The last time this provision was updated was in 1986, during the Ronald Reagan administration, with the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which set the date to Jan. 1, 1972, and resulted in nearly 2.7 million people obtaining legal permanent residency status.

“It has not been updated since that time, which is very problematic for the United States,” Lofgren says. "We're seeing armed, masked agents, refusing to identify themselves, tackling and disappearing people all over the United States. That's having an impact on families, on communities…[in] the economy. The Central Coast economy is rooted in agriculture. More than half the farmworkers are undocumented. If they are disappeared, the economy of this area will collapse."

The bill would provide a path to legal residency for people who have various immigration statuses and skill sets from youth, farmworkers and professionals. 

The renewal would allow immigrants who have lived in the United States for seven years to apply for a green card and the law would have a rolling date, meaning it would update itself without needing new legislation.

U.S. Senator Alex Padilla also reintroduced a similar bill to the Senate and announced it in Los Angeles.