Fairness for Immigrant Families Act of 2026
Sponsored By: Senator Cortez Masto, Catherine [D-NV]
Introduced
Summary
Expands protections and legal paths for immigrant families. The bill restructures reentry and misrepresentation rules, creates new waivers and cancellation pathways, adds oversight and reporting for removals and detentions, and funds anti-fraud enforcement and consumer help programs.
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- Families and children: Reworks the 3‑year and 10‑year reentry bars and adds exceptions for minors, asylees, family‑unity beneficiaries, trafficking victims, and certain childhood arrivals. It creates VAWA and extreme‑hardship waivers and extends a window to seek adjustment of status by up to 5 years.
- Removal oversight and relief seekers: Lowers the hardship threshold for cancellation of removal from 10 years to 7 years and establishes an affirmative application route without numerical limits for qualifying relatives. It also limits detention for many petitioners, requires ICE director approval for removing parents or guardians of children under 21, and mandates quarterly enforcement reporting.
- Anti‑fraud, grants, and fee transparency: Creates criminal penalties for fraudulent immigration services, authorizes grants for hotlines and outreach ($15 million and $10 million annually) and enforcement grants ($10 million annually), restricts sharing of personally identifiable information, and requires detailed fee and backlog reporting by USCIS.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
5 provisions identified: 4 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
More legal relief for immigrant families
If enacted, the bill would let some noncitizens seek cancellation of removal after 7 years in the U.S. instead of 10. The bill would create a new affirmative application path to request cancellation and adjustment that would not count against visa limits and would require final regulations within 9 months. It would let certain relatives reopen or withdraw cases affected by fraud or bad advice, and it would add exceptions and waivers to some reentry bars. The bill would not change existing criminal-conviction grounds for inadmissibility or deportability.
Limits and reports for immigration fees
If enacted, the bill would require most immigration fees to be deposited into the federal Immigration Examinations Fee Account. The Secretary could not raise any immigration service fee above its January 1, 2026 level until 60 days after sending a detailed cost-and-fee report to Congress. Fees from residents of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands would be remitted to those territories. USCIS would also have to send annual money reports and quarterly processing reports with median processing times and workload counts.
Limits on detention and parent removals
If enacted, the bill would generally bar ICE from removing or detaining people who are victims of trafficking or serious crimes, witnesses, certain civil-rights plaintiffs, and people with specified pending immigration petitions or DACA renewals. Covered people would have a rebuttable presumption against detention unless a senior official finds they are a threat. The bill would also require the ICE Director to personally review and approve any removal of a parent or legal guardian of a child under 21 who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, and to report quarterly to Congress on those decisions.
Fight immigration fraud and scams
If enacted, the bill would make major fraud schemes and pretending to be an immigration attorney federal crimes and require convicted fraudsters to repay clients. The Federal Trade Commission would write rules for immigration consultants within 180 days, including clear disclosures, written contracts, a 72-hour cancellation right, no up-front fees, and document-return rules. The Attorney General could give grants for a 24-hour fraud hotline and digital tools ($15 million a year) and for outreach ($10 million a year) and enforcement grants to states and localities. The bill would also let people sue bad consultants for lost money or up to $10,000 per violation and allow state attorneys general to sue.
New reports on removals and children
If enacted, DHS would give Congress an initial report within 90 days listing covered aliens removed since January 20, 2025 and then send quarterly reports on arrests, detentions, final orders, removals by destination country, and use of partnership programs. DHS must also send semiannual reports on protected aliens and report to Congress within 24 hours whenever a U.S. citizen is detained or removed, with quarterly follow-ups. The State Department would create an outreach office and report every six months about U.S. citizen children who left the U.S. to accompany a removed parent and help those children get documents and services.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Cortez Masto, Catherine [D-NV]
NV • D
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.gov