Sponsors (220)
Official title: To authorize the cancellation of removal and adjustment of status of certain aliens, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 26, 2025 by Sylvia Garcia · Last progress February 26, 2025
The bill creates broad new pathways and procedural supports for longtime noncitizen residents (including DACA and TPS/DED populations) to gain lawful permanent residence and related benefits while shifting costs to applicants and governments and maintaining criminal/security bars and vetting procedures that may delay or deny relief for some eligible people.
DACA recipients, TPS/DED beneficiaries, longtime childhood arrivals, and other long‑term noncitizen residents can apply for conditional or permanent lawful permanent resident (LPR) status, creating broad pathways to stability, work authorization, and access to benefits.
The bill establishes streamlined procedural protections and supports—fee‑exempt adjustment routes for some DACA grantees, the ability to withdraw applications without prejudice, protection from removal for prima facie eligible applicants, broader acceptable evidence rules, grants to nonprofits, and funding for appointed counsel—that reduce legal and administrative barriers to adjustment.
Repeal of 8 U.S.C. §1623 allows states to extend in‑state and residency‑based postsecondary benefits to noncitizen students, lowering college costs and expanding access to higher education for eligible students.
Applicants may face substantial processing fees (statutory figures cited up to $495 and up to $1,140, plus a $25 surcharge to fund counsel) that can impose significant burdens on low‑income immigrants despite some exemptions.
Criminal and national‑security bars (including permanent bars for certain convictions) and broad provisional denial authority could leave longtime residents without relief, permanently bar some applicants, or subject them to removal or criminal exposure.
Mandatory biometric and biographic submissions, background checks, and authorized sharing of data with security or law‑enforcement for fraud or felony investigations can delay approvals and expose applicants (including those with minor past records) to criminal probes.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Creates conditional LPR status for eligible childhood arrivals and a separate LPR adjustment path for certain former TPS/DED nationals, with eligibility rules, waivers, biometric checks, and fee authority.
Creates two new immigration adjustment pathways: a conditional-legal-permanent-resident route for long-term residents who arrived as children (a Dream Act-style program) and a separate adjustment-of-status route for certain nationals of countries previously designated for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). The bill sets eligibility rules, application timelines, background-check and biometric requirements, fee authority, waiver standards for some inadmissibility grounds, and procedures for handling pending removal orders and convictions. Establishes definitions and procedural safeguards (fee exemptions for minors, treatment of expunged convictions, ability to apply without reopening prior removal orders) and requires adjudicators to complete security checks before granting status. Some inadmissibility grounds remain bars; others may be waived for humanitarian, family-unity, or public-interest reasons under a defined waiver regime.