Accountability Report – H.R. 4393 The DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2025

Border Security, Workforce Reality, and the True Cost of Reform

What this bill is intended to do

H.R. 4393, known as the DIGNIDAD Act of 2025, is a comprehensive immigration reform bill introduced by Maria Elvira Salazar. The bill attempts to address two realities that Congress has failed to reconcile for decades.

The first reality is border control and national sovereignty. The second is economic dependency on immigrant labor across construction, agriculture, hospitality, and other essential industries.

The stated intent of this bill is to secure the border, restore order to immigration enforcement, and create a structured and accountable legal status for certain undocumented immigrants who are already deeply embedded in the American economy. It does this by pairing enforcement expansion with a long term work authorization program called the Dignity Program.

This is not a narrow bill. It touches border infrastructure, asylum reform, criminal enforcement, mandatory employment verification, worker contributions, and federal fee funded trust structures.

How the bill attempts to enforce border security and the rule of law

On enforcement, the bill significantly expands federal authority and infrastructure.

It strengthens physical barriers and tactical technology along the southern border. It also increases Border Patrol staffing, training, and compensation. This bill authorizes body worn camera programs and formalizes sensitive location enforcement standards.

The bill increases penalties for smuggling, child trafficking, document fraud, unlawful reentry, and interference with immigration enforcement. It mandates nationwide E Verify and increases penalties for employers who knowingly violate employment eligibility laws.

It also reforms asylum processing by accelerating credible fear determinations, creating humanitarian campuses, recording interviews, and increasing penalties for asylum fraud.

Taken together, these provisions are designed to reduce incentives for illegal entry while restoring operational control to federal agencies, including ICE and Border Patrol.

How the Dignity Program works

The Dignity Program is the most debated element of the bill.

It creates a legal work and travel authorization status for certain undocumented individuals who have been continuously present in the United States since late 2020. Participation is not automatic.

Applicants must submit biometric and biographic data, pass background checks, register with the federal government, maintain employment, and pay restitution fees totaling at least seven thousand dollars over seven years. Participants must remain in good standing and report regularly.

Critically, the bill does not create a direct path to citizenship. Dignity status is temporary, conditional, and revocable. It is designed as a work authorization and accountability framework, not an amnesty or naturalization program.

Furthermore, individuals who do not qualify must either depart voluntarily or face removal under existing law.

Estimated cost to taxpayers

There is no complete CBO cost estimate yet. That alone is a red flag that requires oversight.

On paper, the bill attempts to offset costs through fees paid by participants, employers, and premium processing users. These funds are directed into immigration infrastructure, workforce programs, and administrative capacity. Any remaining funds are designated to reduce the national debt.

In practice, upfront costs will be significant.

Border infrastructure, technology deployment, staffing increases, asylum processing reforms, enforcement actions, audits, and adjudication capacity will require billions in federal spending, especially in early years.

Some costs will be offset. Others will not.

Florida will experience both benefit and burden. Our economy relies heavily on immigrant labor, but our communities also bear the strain when systems are disorganized or enforcement is inconsistent.

This bill demands strict fiscal accountability if it moves forward.

My position and why I support this legislation

I am going to be very clear, because voters deserve clarity, not political hedging.

I support H.R. 4393, with a firm condition. It must never become a path to legal citizenship.

If that safeguard is weakened or removed, my support ends.

Now let me explain why I support this bill and how it directly ties to affordability, housing supply, and common sense governance.

The reality on the ground in Florida

Anyone who actually lives and works in Palm Beach County knows this truth.

Our home builders, framers, roofers, concrete crews, electricians, landscapers, and many other blue collar workers include a large number of immigrants. Some entered legally. Some did not.

This is an economic fact.

If we are going to talk honestly about housing affordability and housing supply, we cannot ignore labor reality.

My thought: we cannot build homes without workers.

Florida does not have a housing affordability crisis because workers exist. We have a crisis because supply has not kept pace with demand, costs have skyrocketed, and policy has failed to align workforce reality with enforcement reality.

Ignoring that makes housing more expensive, not less.

Dignity without citizenship is common sense

I reject open borders. I reject amnesty. I reject rewarding illegal entry with citizenship.

At the same time, I reject pretending that mass removal of millions of working age, non-criminal adults embedded in the economy would somehow lower costs for families. It would do the opposite.

The Dignity Program, if enforced correctly, does something Congress has avoided. It forces accountability.

Participants must register. They must work. They must pay restitution. They must follow the law. They must remain visible to the system. They are not rewarded with citizenship.

This is not compassion without consequence. This is structure with conditions.

How this supports affordability and housing supply

Housing costs are driven by land, materials, labor, and regulatory friction.

Federal policy does not control local zoning, but it does influence labor stability and economic predictability.

When construction labor disappears overnight, or via mass deportation of illegal aliens, projects stall. When projects stall, costs rise. When costs rise, families pay more in rent and mortgages.

By stabilizing a lawful workforce without expanding citizenship rolls, this bill supports housing supply without undermining sovereignty.

That is the balance.

ICE enforcement and modern reality

I want to be explicit about ICE.

ICE is doing a job well done under extremely difficult circumstances. They are enforcing outdated laws in a modern economy while absorbing enormous social pressure from every direction.

That is not fair to them, and it is not sustainable.

We cannot ask federal agents to enforce laws that Congress refuses to modernize. That creates chaos, politicization, and public distrust.

Reforming immigration law allows ICE to enforce rules that make sense for today’s reality, not yesterday’s failure.

Dignity does not weaken enforcement. It clarifies it.

I will hold this position

I am not running to surprise voters after election day.

If elected, my positions will be exactly what I told you they would be.

I support border security. I support the rule of law. I support ICE. I support American workers. I support affordability. I support housing supply.

Those goals are not mutually exclusive if Congress finally acts like adults.

This bill is not perfect. It will require amendments, safeguards, and relentless oversight. But doing nothing is not principled. It is negligent.

Accountability commitment

If this bill advances, accountability does not end at passage.

We must track costs, enforcement outcomes, workforce participation, housing impact, and whether safeguards against citizenship expansion remain intact.

If those conditions fail, the bill fails.

That is my promise.

Final takeaway

H.R. 4393 is a test of whether Congress can address reality without surrendering principle.

I support this bill only as long as it preserves dignity without citizenship, enforces the law with clarity, and supports the economic backbone of communities like ours.

No surprises. No spin. No backtracking.

That is accountability.