With a bipartisan majority, the House passed the Dream and Promise Act, legislation that would create a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented people brought into the country when they were children, NBC News reports.  By a 227 to 198 vote, with nine Republicans joining all House Democrats, the legislation passed and will now head to the Senate.

Republicans have made the border a centerpoint of their anti-Biden public relations strategy, pointing to an influx of immigrants at the southern border as a sign that Biden is soft on national security.  Without evidence, Republicans have claimed that members of ISIS have been sneaking across the border, a claim they also made throughout the Obama administration.

In 2013, the Senate passed a similar bill, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, with a strong bipartisan majority, 68-32.  Even though the legislation would have passed the House, the bill, however, was never taken up by the John Boehner-led House out of fear of giving President Barack Obama a policy victory, and it died in a drawer in the Speaker’s office. 

This bill, like its 2013 cousin, has a pathway to citizenship for people who were brought into the United States years ago, do not have a criminal record, and have completed other requirements.  The group, thought to number around 2.5 million people known as Dreamers, had been protected from deportation by an executive order signed by Obama after the 2013 measure failed.

The Senate, however, may not be as accepting of an immigration bill this session.  “It’s going to be really hard to get a bipartisan bill put together on anything that has a legalization component until you stop the flow,” South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said Monday.