Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) is leading an effort to prevent the deportation of an untold number of illegal aliens, offering them a legal pathway to remain in the United States with a bill that critics have called an amnesty proposal.

Called the Dignity Act, the legislation was introduced by Salazar and Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX). It would allow illegal aliens who have been in the country since 2021 to apply for a renewable seven-year legal status. Those deemed eligible would have to pass a background check and pay $7,000 in restitution over a seven-year period.

The bill would also offer legal status and a pathway to permanent residency — and eventually to citizenship — for recipients of the Obama-era DACA program.

“We are the noblest nation on the face of the Earth. It is time for our immigration system to measure up,” Salazar wrote in Spanish on X.

Salazar repeatedly claimed that the legislation is not an amnesty bill, arguing that it “allows certain long-term undocumented immigrants to earn legal status, without amnesty or a path to citizenship.”

The legislation has been derided by critics as an amnesty measure, however. Former Representative Matt Gaetz warned that “the ‘Dignity Act’ includes amnesty for illegal immigrants,” while conservative lawyer Will Chamberlain charged that the legislation “is an amnesty bill for illegal aliens and would absolutely blow the door open on legal migration.”

Conservative organizations similarly warned that the legislation includes amnesty for illegal aliens. “There is no mistake about it, this is first and foremost an amnesty bill,” the Federation for American Immigration Reform wrote when the legislation was introduced in a previous legislative session in 2022.

The Center for Immigration Studies similarly blasted the bill when Salazar introduced it in 2022, calling it “an amnesty for aliens illegally present in the United States” warning that “all amnesties simply encourage more illegal immigration, and Salazar’s proposal would be no different.”

Salazar touted the legislation in media appearances this week, claiming that some illegal aliens “deserve to stay in the United States.”

“There is another mass of people, most of them Hispanics, who have been here for more than five years contributing to the economy, who do not have a criminal record, and those people deserve some type of dignity and deserve to stay,” Salazar said in an appearance on Fox News.

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh shot back at Salazar on X, blasting her argument that some illegal aliens “deserve” to remain in America despite illegally entering the country.

“Deserve? If foreigners ‘deserve’ to disregard our laws, what laws do I as an American citizen deserve to disregard? Do I deserve to not pay my taxes? Ignore speed limits? Shoplift? Or is this an entitlement reserved only for foreign nationals? Please explain, Maria,” Walsh charged.

In addition to offering legal status to illegal aliens, the bill would also expand the number of migrants who could enter the country on various visas, mandate that employers use E-Verify to check the work authorization status of new hires, increase pay for Border Patrol agents, and grant new funding to upgrade ports of entry along the border.

Salazar is not the only Republican in support of the effort to offer legal status to illegal aliens, however. The act has also received the support of Mario Rafael Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Dan Newhouse (R-WA), David Valadao (R-CA), Mike Kelly (R-PA), Gabe Evans (R-CO), Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), Don Bacon (R-NE), and Young Kim (R-CA).

Salazar did not respond to a request for comment.