By Jennifer Doherty

Law360 (April 13, 2021, 7:57 PM EDT) -- Almost two dozen Democratic lawmakers called on President Joe Biden on Tuesday to prioritize citizenship for essential workers without lawful immigration status, in a letter urging the White House to include them in its next slate of legislation aimed at rebuilding the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The coalition, led by U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urged Biden to include the Citizenship for Essential Workers Act in his forthcoming American Families Plan.

"Essential workers are American heroes — and they have earned the right to become American citizens. They have stepped up for America. It's time for us to step up for them," the lawmakers told the president.

The bill, which Padilla introduced in the U.S. Senate last month shortly after his appointment, is currently pending in both chambers. It would provide lawful residency to unauthorized immigrants working in industries such as health care, food service, construction, child care, sanitation, janitorial services, agriculture, manufacturing and transportation, as well as their immediate family members or the surviving relatives of essential workers who died in the pandemic.

"Essential workers also paid a terrible toll this past year," the lawmakers wrote. "They are unable to work from home, often live in crowded conditions with their families, work in industries with unsafe conditions, and earn poverty level wages. Thus, the pandemic only worsened their living situations, compounding on the grim socio-economic and racial disparities in our country."

If enacted, the bill would also grant residency to essential workers who were forced to leave their jobs during the pandemic and are seeking to reenter those fields.

Citing data from FWD.us, a pro-immigration political organization whose founders include Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, the legislators said the bill stands to improve conditions for more than 5 million people.

"The Citizenship for Essential Workers Act directly relates to the priority of rebuilding America's economic infrastructure and aligns entirely with the administration's priority on defeating COVID-19," Castro and his colleagues continued.

They are pushing the White House to include the bill in Biden's two-part follow-up to American Rescue Plan, the massive stimulus package enacted in March. As the president announced during a speech on March 31, his next policy push will focus on employment and infrastructure under the $2 trillion American Jobs Plan and the as-yet-undefined American Families Plan.

The president directly referenced one set of immigrant essential workers in his remarks last month.

"For too long, caregivers — who are disproportionately women and women of color and immigrants — have been unseen, underpaid and undervalued," Biden said. "This plan, along with the American Families Plan, changes that with better wages, benefits and opportunities for millions of people who will be able to get to work in an economy that works for them."

While the lawmakers, citing a poll conducted by Data For Progress last month, contend that a bipartisan majority of U.S. citizens support citizenship for essential workers, they are already gearing up for a legislative fight.

If the jobs and families plans have to go through the budget reconciliation process to get past a Republican filibuster, as the American Rescue Plan did, that process should include provisions for the Citizenship for Essential Workers Act, they said.

"The upcoming legislative package on jobs and infrastructure is the best opportunity to recognize and reward the sacrifices and labor of essential workers," they said.

--Editing by Steven Edelstone.

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