GUIDE Act

HR4393 — DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2025

This bill would create a comprehensive immigration and border-security overhaul that layers new physical barriers and surveillance with big changes to employer verification, asylum processing, and legal-status pathways. It bundles construction and funding, a rethought E‑Verify system, expedited asylum at humanitarian campuses, and new conditional and Dignity status routes for long‑term residents. - Would expand humanitarian processing and asylum rules for migrants. It would establish at least three southern border humanitarian campuses for screening, medical checks, legal orientation, and an expedited asylum track with a 72‑hour arrival rest and a 15‑day initial screening goal. - Would change worksite verification and employer rules. It would replace the current system with a new Employment Eligibility Verification System, phase mandatory employer use by size over 6–24 months, allow secondary checks and a limited good‑faith defense, and raise penalties and debarment authority for violations. - Would invest in ports, infrastructure, and backlog tools and create a new trust fund. It would authorize $2.0 billion annually for ports in FY2026–2030, create an Immigration Infrastructure and Debt Reduction Fund, and permit premium processing deposits including a $20,000 premium option to address visa backlogs. Would authorize substantial new appropriations and fee deposits, including $2.0 billion annually for FY2026–2030, increasing federal outlays.

HR6644 — Housing for the 21st Century Act

*A federal push to increase housing supply by modernizing zoning and reforming housing programs.* The bill pairs model zoning guidelines and local planning pilots with HOME program changes and multiple HUD pilots to speed production and improve tenant supports. - Families and renters: HOME program rules harmonize income limits to 100% of area median income and raise homeownership eligibility to 110% AMI, expanding who can get help for rental and homebuying. Tenants in federally assisted housing gain new supports such as an eviction helpline and pilots for escrow accounts and internet-connected temperature sensors to track habitability. - Local governments and planners: HUD must publish model zoning guidelines within 3 years and recipients must report on land-use policy adoption. The bill funds pattern-book grants and planning/implementation pilots so jurisdictions can adopt pre-approved designs and streamline permitting. - Builders and manufactured housing sector: The law lets manufactured homes be built without a permanent chassis and requires new federal standards plus state certification within 1 year to ensure parity in financing, titling, and installation.

HR2725 — Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2025

Rewrites and expands the Low‑Income Housing Tax Credit to boost construction and affordability for very low‑income renters. It would rename the program the Affordable Housing Credit and change how states get credits, who counts as low‑income, and how projects qualify and claim credits. - Families and residents: Would change tenant rules so most full‑time students under age 24 do not count as low‑income occupants, allow tenant‑based voucher payments to be excluded from rent calculations in certain projects, and add protections for survivors of domestic violence and for veterans. - Developers and owners: Would raise state allocations and set the minimum allocation at $4,876,000 in 2025, create a bigger credit when at least 20% of units serve extremely low‑income households, treat relocation costs as eligible rehab expenses, and tighten acquisition‑basis and foreclosure timing rules. - States, tribes, and rural areas: Would require housing agencies to apply community revitalization and cost‑reasonableness criteria, add Indian areas and rural areas to difficult development area rules with specific NAHASDA exceptions, and bar prioritizing local official approval or contributions in allocation plans.

HR471 — Fix Our Forests Act

Speeds hazardous fuels reduction and wildfire resilience by creating designated fireshed areas, a joint Fireshed Center, and new authorities that would streamline planning, data sharing, and on-the-ground restoration across federal, Tribal, state, local, private, and nonprofit lands. - Communities and households: At-risk communities would get coordinated mapping, smoke forecasting, and a unified grant application to make funding for home hardening and local projects easier to access. - Tribal governments and state/local partners: Tribes or Governors could trigger shared‑stewardship agreements within 90 days to join cross‑boundary planning and fireshed assessments that prioritize tribal water supplies and community risk. - Forest managers, utilities, and responders: Agencies would gain faster project authorities including NEPA exemptions for designated firesheds, higher Healthy Forests Restoration Act project thresholds (10,000 acres), a 150‑foot hazard‑tree clearance for power lines, expanded contracting tools, and intra‑agency strike teams to speed environmental reviews and implementation. Note: The sources set many deadlines, reporting rules, pilot programs, and several seven‑year sunsets but do not provide a specific federal cost estimate.

HR7333 — Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act of 2026

Expands and funds trauma-informed, culturally specific services for victims of family, domestic, and dating violence. This bill would create new grant programs, Tribal hotlines, prevention funding, and technical assistance to strengthen shelters, outreach, and coordinated services for survivors and their children. - Families and survivors: Would boost shelter, safety planning, counseling, and voluntary supportive services with a core authorization of $270 million per year to expand formula and specialized grants. - Tribal communities: Would reserve at least 12.5% of section 303 funds for Tribal grants, establish a National Indian Domestic Violence Hotline with $4 million per year, and add Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian resource centers. - Service providers and prevention: Would set minimum allocations to build system capacity, including at least 6% for national technical assistance and at least 10% for State and Tribal domestic violence coalitions, and would fund coalition-led prevention and demonstration projects. This bill would authorize roughly $270 million per year for core programs plus about $69 million per year in additional targeted authorizations, increasing federal spending by about $339 million annually.

HR6955 — Main Street Capital Access Act

Expand formation of new and rural banks by giving de novo institutions phased capital flexibility and clearer supervisory treatment. The bill would also tailor rules for small banks and index statutory thresholds to GDP. - New and rural de novo banks would get a three-year phase-in of federal capital rules and may request business-plan deviations during that window. The bill creates a Rural Community Depository Institution Leverage Ratio capped at 7.5% for the phase-in period and defines rural depositories as those with under $10 billion in assets in nonurban areas. - Small banks and credit unions would face lighter, more predictable examinations and reporting. Insured institutions with $6.0 billion or less in consolidated assets could move to limited-scope exams after a full-scope review. The Community Bank Leverage Ratio qualifying threshold rises to $15.0 billion and the small holding company asset limit rises to $25.0 billion. - Regulators, depositors, and markets would see tighter rules for supervisory transparency and appeals. The bill would require objective CAMELS criteria, create an independent examination review board with a 60-day appeal window, ban supervisory actions based on "reputational risk," and exempt merger competition review for deals that produce firms under $10.0 billion while indexing many thresholds to GDP.