These Are the Immigration Bills Congress Has Introduced So Far

While the focus of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies has been on enforcement raids across the country and his executive orders, House Republicans have introduced at least six bills aimed at immigration reform.

Among the issues covered by the legislation are creating funds to finish the wall at the United States-Mexico border, detaining rather than releasing asylum seekers, and ensuring all immigrants accused of sexual offenses are deported.

The bills come after Trump signed the first piece of legislation during his new term in the White House, the Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student killed by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela.

“For over three decades, Congress has led with enforcement-only approaches to immigration policy rather than common sense legislation,” Amada Armenta, faculty director at UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, told Newsweek.

“Reform would require acknowledging that immigrants, including millions who are here without a legal immigration status, make tremendous and unacknowledged contributions to society and are crucial to numerous industries in the U.S. economy. Considering that the political messaging this summer was that immigrants eat pets, I’m not optimistic.”

Why It Matters

Trump was elected off the back of an election campaign heavily focused on illegal immigration and border security, with a promise of reintroducing tough measures and the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants.

With a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Republican Party has scope to bring about longer-term immigration changes through legislation—something many Americans polled have said they would like to see, though there has been some division over how this could be achieved.

What To Know

The bills introduced tap into different areas of concern when it comes to immigration, including securing the southwest border and tackling violent, illegal immigrant criminals, while not necessarily seeking overall reform to a complex system that has not seen major changes in at least 30 years.

Under the Laken Riley Act, signed by Trump earlier this week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be obligated to detain immigrants who are accused of or charged with theft and burglary offenses, as well as assaulting a law enforcement official. State attorneys general can now also sue the federal government for not enforcing immigration laws.

Fund and Complete the Border Wall Act

The Fund and Complete the Border Wall Act, introduced by Republican Arizona Representative Andy Biggs, seeks to create a separate Treasury Department account to hold money for the border wall project.

Newsweek reached out to Biggs’ office for comment via email Friday morning.

During his first presidential campaign and subsequent term in the White House, Trump promised to build a wall along the nearly 2,000 miles of border with Mexico, which the neighboring country would pay for.

Between 2017 and 2021, around $15 billion was spent on the project, leading to around 52 miles of new barriers constructed and 400 miles of repairs. When former President Joe Biden took office, he halted construction.

Biggs’ bill would generate extra funds for border wall construction from immigration entry/exit forms, known as I-94s. The current cost is $6, which would be increased to $25. Nine dollars of that would go to border wall construction, and $10 would pay the wages of Border Patrol agents.

The bill also sets a deadline of December 31, 2025, for the Department of Homeland Security to develop a design and plan for the completed border wall.

So far, the bill has been introduced and sent to the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement.

Ending Catch and Release Act

Under current immigration policy, asylum seekers who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally can be detained by the Border Patrol but then released into the community if they are not seen as a threat as they await an immigration court hearing.

In this second bill introduced by Biggs, the practice would stop, and asylum seekers would either need to be in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detention or be sent back to their home country while their cases are pending.

The bill reflects a similar order from the president, signed on Inauguration Day, which said that the secretary of Homeland Security, now Kristi Noem, would have to terminate the policy.

This bill has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act

South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace introduced the bill in the House earlier in January, and it passed with over 50 cosponsors before heading to the Senate.

The bill is designed to prevent immigrants who have admitted to or been convicted of certain sexual or abuse-related offenses, including stalking, child abuse, domestic violence or conspiring to commit a sex offense, from being admitted into the U.S.

It also adds new grounds for deportation on top of offenses like those above. An immigrant convicted of any sex offense could then be removed from the country.

“It’s really simple—President Trump does not want criminal illegal aliens in our country a minute longer than necessary,” Mace said in a statement to Newsweek. “Career criminals and gang members like Jose Ibarra, a member of Tren de Agua—a gang now operating in at least 16 states and likely many more—commit all kinds of violent crimes before eventually graduating to murder, homicide, rape, and assault.

“We need to deport the worst of the worst first, which is exactly what the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act and the Laken Riley Act would do. We plan to address detention capacity during reconciliation—especially since we only have around 40,000 detention beds.”

Protecting our Communities from Sexual Predators Act

Florida Representative Vern Buchanan introduced a similar piece of legislation to Mace’s, entitled the “Protecting our Communities from Sexual Predators Act.”

Again, it seeks to amend the rules around who is allowed into the U.S. and which immigrants can be deported if they are convicted of, or have admitted to, committing sexual offenses.

The bill is sitting with the House Committee on the Judiciary.

VOICE Restoration Act

Michigan Representative Jack Bergman is behind this bill, which attempts to bring back a policy from the previous Trump administration that was later scrapped under Biden.

The Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office (VOICE) was established to provide services to victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants and act as a liaison between ICE and families.

The office was also supposed to issue quarterly reports on immigrant crime, but only one report was issued in June 2018. Biden dismantled the office on June 11, 2021.

“The VOICE Act will re-establish the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office within the Department of Homeland Security, ensuring those impacted by crimes committed by illegal immigrants have access to the partnerships, resources, and support they need,” Bergman said in a statement to Newsweek.

“The VOICE office was created by President Trump in his first term and wrongfully terminated by the Biden Administration. I’m proud to help lead this fight to give a voice to those impacted by these crimes.”

Justice for Jocelyn Act

Another piece of legislation named after a victim of illegal immigrant crime, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, killed in Houston in 2024, would again require ICE to detain as many illegal immigrants as possible before any are released under supervision.

The bill was first introduced during the previous Congress, spearheaded by Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Troy E. Nehls.

Experts have warned that ICE cannot hold many more people, but it is expected that additional funding for more detention facilities will be made available under the Trump administration.

What People Are Saying

Amada Armenta, faculty director at UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, told Newsweek: “Historically, immigration enforcement policies have little to no effect on the size of immigrant communities or crime rates, though they are effective at instilling fear and chaos in immigrant communities, criminalizing immigrants, increasing racial profiling of U.S. citizens of Latino descent, and using vast resources to symbolically showing that the government is “doing something” about immigration.”

Republican Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, in a press release alongside Mace: “No illegal immigrant who commits an act of sexual violence against U.S. citizens should be allowed to enter or remain in our country. This legislation is common sense, and we need to keep dangerous individuals like the violent criminals who killed Laken Riley and Rachel Morin off our streets and out of our country.”

What Happens Next

The majority of the bills now face scrutiny from House committees and discussion on the House floor before they can be sent to the Senate and, potentially, the White House.