As immigration enforcement continues now for more than a month throughout the LA area and other parts of the Southland, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, announced legislation Friday that aims to make it easier for immigrants to transition from undocumented status to legal permanent residency.
Padilla’s bill would update the Immigration Act of 1929, also known as the “Registry Bill.” The law gives the Homeland Security Department secretary the discretion to register certain individuals for lawful permanent resident status if they have lived in the United States since a certain date, among other requirements.
The law was enacted in 1929 and Congress has modified it four times, with the last modification in 1986 during the Reagan administration. Since then, the law has remained unchanged.
According to Padilla’s office, the Registry Bill allows immigrants who have lived in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 1972, to apply for and obtain a green card. Under the senator’s proposal, immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for seven years or longer, do not have a criminal record and meet all other current eligibility requirements could apply for a green card.
“Americans know there’s a better path forward than the Trump administration’s cruel scapegoating of hardworking immigrants and fearmongering of California communities,” Padilla told reporters in downtown Los Angeles.
“We believe that if you’ve lived here for over seven years, paid taxes for years, contributed to your community for years and you don’t have a criminal record, then you deserve a pathway to legalization,” he added.
Padilla said this “overdue update” would provide a much-needed path to a work permit for more than 8 million people such as Dreamers, which refers to forcibly displaced citizens or temporary protected status holders, children of long-term visa holders, essential workers and people with H-1B visas.
“My bill is a commonsense fix to our outdated immigration system and the same kind of reform that Republic President Ronald Reagan embraced four decades ago, calling it a ‘matter of basic fairness,'” Padilla said.
The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Adam Schiff, D-California, Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, Ben Ray Lujan, D-New Mexico, Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren, both Massachusetts Democrats, Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, Patty Murray, D-Washington, Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.
Similar bills have been introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who has submitted companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles, joined Padilla for Friday’s announcement.
“We are loving human beings who fight to keep families together,” Salas said. “We dream of a better tomorrow for future generations, and we believe in an America that is a multiracial democracy where we are all welcome.”
She noted that hundreds of organizations across the country are joining the “We Belong Here” campaign, a citizenship initiative to help advance Padilla’s efforts.
Padilla, LA Mayor Karen Bass and other local Democrats have lambasted the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, accusing the federal government of targeting people based on race and skin color and reneging on a pledge to target individuals with criminal pasts for deportation.
White House officials have denied those allegations, and refer to Trump’s campaign promises of mass deportations and the historically low number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border since Trump took office in January.
Federal agencies continue to release details about some detainees with alleged criminal histories.
Demonstrators clash with police in downtown LA
Demonstrations were continued over the weekend against the Trump administration’s ongoing illegal immigration crackdown after three nights of protests last week that featured occasional violence involving protesters and police.
Protests reportedly continued Sunday, but it was unclear if any new arrests or violent clashes between protesters and police occurred following the group RefuseFascism.org’s March for Humanity. The march originated around 10 a.m. Saturday at La Placita Olvera, then proceeded past the federal Metropolitan Detention Center into East Los Angeles and concluded at Hollenbeck Park.
According to organizers, the march was to protest “our immigrant brothers and sisters … being hunted, disappeared into detention camps and terrorized by a lawless and grotesque federalized military force loyal only to Trump’s MAGA fascist regime.”
In a statement Monday, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “The Trump administration is committed to keeping the promises President Trump made to the American people: enforcing federal immigration laws and deporting criminal illegal aliens. The opinion of an organization founded by self-proclaimed communists is irrelevant.”
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA members Sunsara Taylor and Carl Dix were among the speakers at Refuse Fascism’s 2016 launch event in New York City.
On Friday night around 10 p.m., protesters blocked the road at Aliso and Alameda streets near the Metropolitan Detention Center. The Los Angeles Police Department cautioned drivers to use alternate routes.
The crowd cleared the area by 1 a.m., according to news reports.
On Thursday night, at least one person was injured and four people were arrested when protesters clashed with police at the same location.
“Late in the evening and into the morning hours, Central Division officers were called to the area (of) Alameda south of Aliso due to federal officers requesting assistance due to protesters trespassing, obstructing and becoming violent,” according to an LAPD statement. “When Central officers arrived, they were confronted by a large group of people in the middle of Alameda.”
As officers responded, they “were met with one individual swinging a 6-foot rope with metal bolts on the end of it hitting officers.”
Others demonstrators did not disperse and resisted efforts to remove them, police said.
One person was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, two on suspicion of resisting or obstructing officers and one was suspected of battery for allegedly spitting on or at officers, according to the LAPD.
Shortly after protests finished dispersing around 12:30 a.m. Friday, the LAPD requested an ambulance to respond to the Metropolitan Detention Center for an injured person, according to news reports from the scene.
ABC7 showed protesters following a Los Angeles Fire Department ambulance, taking photographs and chanting slogans as the ambulance drove away. The ambulance was escorted by a Department of Homeland Security Federal Protective Service vehicle.
The condition of the injured person was not available.
These latest protests started Wednesday night, when National Guard troops were deployed to the scene.
Updated July 28, 2025, 10:06 a.m.
