Santa Barbara Congressmember Salud Carbajal has put his name behind the Dignity Act of 2025, a bipartisan immigration reform bill that was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives last week. The bill has garnered co-sponsorship from Carbajal and 20 fellow members of the House, including 10 Republicans.
“Our country needs to reform our broken immigration system,” said Rep. Carbajal in a press release. “I’m proud to co-sponsor the bipartisan Dignity Act to provide a commonsense solution that will create improved pathways for legal immigration while bolstering our border security.”
Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican from Florida’s 27th district, is the main sponsor behind the bill, as well as the DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2023, which never made it out of House committees. This new Dignity Act of 2025 repackages the ideas put forth in 2023 with the hopes of passing the act through the House and eventually into law.
The act aims to put forward the Dignity Program: a seven year process to help undocumented individuals gain legal employment and status. Those graduating the program will be granted Dignity Status, a permanent legal residence, not citizenship.
“No amnesty. No handouts. No citizenship. Just accountability and a path to stability for our economy and our future.” said Congresswoman Salazar in a press release.
The last immigration reform bills to pass through both chambers of congress and the president’s desk were the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and the Family Sponsor Immigration Act of 2002.
If passed, the bill will provide a pathway to citizenship to Dreamers and reform the asylum seeking process. It will also bolster border security, create more accountability for ICE, and create new processing centers to aid in immigration screening and processing. This will all be paid for through the proposed “Immigration Debt Relief Fund” which collects a 1.5 percent tax on the paychecks of undocumented individuals who go through the seven year Dignity Program.
