Sponsors (29)
The bill creates clearer routes to green cards and work authorization for certain long-term dependent children—reducing aging-out and improving family stability—while imposing narrow eligibility rules and new administrative burdens that could exclude many residents and increase costs and delays for others.
Foreign-born individuals who entered as dependent children and meet the bill's education, presence, and admissibility requirements can obtain lawful permanent residence, creating a direct legal pathway to green cards.
Qualifying beneficiaries who obtain green cards gain greater economic stability and work authorization, helping career advancement and family planning.
Children and long-term dependent family members are protected from 'aging out' and can preserve earlier priority dates, which speeds their path to green cards and keeps family visa queues intact.
Narrow eligibility (degree requirement, lengthy lawful-presence thresholds, and strict admissibility standards) plus documentation burdens will exclude many long-residing dependents and create obstacles to relief.
Implementing new categories and reopening procedures will increase workload for USCIS, DHS, DOS, and DOL, raising administrative and taxpayer costs, lengthening processing times, and creating risks of inconsistent adjudication.
Exempting successful reopened cases from numerical limits could tie up visa numbers and delay green-card availability for other applicants in the family- and employment-based queues.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates a new green‑card pathway and age‑out/priority‑date rules for long‑term dependent children of work visa holders who graduated from U.S. colleges.
Official title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to authorize lawful permanent resident status for certain college graduates who entered the United States as children, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 19, 2025 by Deborah K. Ross · Last progress September 19, 2025
Creates a new immigrant classification and petition process allowing certain foreign‑born people who entered the United States as long‑term dependent children of work visa holders to apply for lawful permanent resident status. It sets eligibility based on lawful presence and dependent status years, U.S. college graduation, and admissibility, and adds a new petition category to seek immigrant visas for these individuals. Changes age‑out rules and priority‑date retention in the Immigration and Nationality Act so these long‑term dependents keep child status for family‑based petitions, can retain earlier priority dates, and may seek motions to reopen past denials where the new child rules would have produced a different result. It also allows derivative beneficiaries to be treated under the new child test and authorizes employment incident to dependent status for qualifying long‑term dependents.