Dream and Promise Act Petition Stuck One Signature Short

The Dream and Promise Act is one signature away from a forced House vote, and the clock on that signature runs out when the 119th Congress ends at noon on Jan. 3, 2027. A discharge petition filed by Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, to bring the bill to the floor has held at 217 of the 218 signatures it needs since Sept. 2, according to the House Clerk’s official tally, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries says the missing name has to come from a Republican. The people waiting on that answer are Dreamers who arrived as children and holders of Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure.

The count has not moved in more than two months; what has changed is the calendar. Jeffries said on Nov. 9 that Democrats need “one additional signature that we need to force a vote on the Dream and Promise Act from a Republican,” according to Fox News, as Congress opened a lame-duck session after midterms that, CBS News reported, leave him poised to become speaker in January. A petition that is not completed before then dies with this Congress, and the bill it would discharge, H.R. 1589, dies with it.

Who has signed the Dream and Promise Act petition

The House Clerk lists the petition as Discharge Petition No. 25. It targets H.Res. 1414, a special rule that would pull H.R. 1589 out of the Rules Committee and set terms for debate. Garcia filed it on July 20, and 209 members signed in the first three days. The pace then collapsed: one signature on July 23, then seven more between Aug. 31 and Sept. 2, and none since.

Of the 217 signers, 214 are Democrats and three are Republicans: Rep. María Elvira Salazar of Florida, whom Garcia’s office describes as the bill’s co-lead; Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania; and Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who signed on Sept. 1. Under House rules, the 218 threshold is fixed at a majority of the full 435-seat House, so vacancies do not lower it, the Congressional Research Service notes.

Why one signature may still not be enough time

Even a 218th signature would not bring an immediate vote. The discharge rule, as summarized in a February 2026 Congressional Research Service report, sets three steps:

Once the petition reaches 218, it goes on the Discharge Calendar and must sit there for seven legislative days.
After that, a signer can announce an intention to offer the discharge motion, and the speaker must schedule it within two legislative days.
Discharge motions are not in order during the last six days of a session.

Legislative days are days the House actually meets, and lame-duck sessions are short and broken up by holidays. The practical effect is that a Republican who signs in mid-December may be too late.

A House vote would also not make the bill law. Versions of the American Dream and Promise Act passed the House in 2019, by 237 to 187, and in 2021, by 228 to 197, and neither received a Senate vote. The current Senate would need 60 votes to move it, and President Trump said on Nov. 9 that he rejects “amnesty,” The Washington Post reported, a day after telling CBS’s “60 Minutes” that his deportation policy might have been “too tough.” Supporters led by Garcia and Salazar call the bill an earned path, with background checks, for people brought here as children and long-settled TPS holders; critics, including the president, treat broad legalization as amnesty. Earlier coverage of Trump’s no-amnesty message and of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s opening on a DACA green card path lays out how far apart the opening positions are.

What the bill would do for DACA and TPS holders

For Dreamers, the bill would offer 10 years of conditional permanent residence to people who arrived at 18 or younger, have lived here continuously since Jan. 1, 2021, meet an education requirement and pass background checks, according to a July 2026 summary by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, an advocacy group that backs the bill. The conditions would lift after a degree or two years of college, two years of military service, or three years of work. Eligible TPS and DED holders would get permanent residence directly, and H.Res. 1414 moves the TPS eligibility date to July 1, 2024, the summary says.

About 455,200 people held active DACA status at the end of March 2026, according to USAFacts, which compiles U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. No Congressional Budget Office estimate for the 2025 bill could be found. The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that up to 4.4 million people could have been eligible under the 2021 version, a figure based on older data and a different bill text. Nothing changes today: DACA remains deferred action renewed in two-year grants, as covered in DACA After the Midterms.

After Jan. 3, a Democratic House majority would not need a discharge petition, because the majority controls the Rules Committee, but the bill would have to be reintroduced and the Senate’s 60-vote threshold would remain. That makes the coming weeks less a test of whether the House can pass the bill than of whether a fourth Republican will go on record, a signal of how much GOP support exists for the kind of deal discussed in the look back at the 1986 law and the Dignity Act comparison.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds an LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Diego and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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