Sponsors (27)
The bill grants targeted legal protections, work authorization, and limited green-card pathways to certain long-term dependent immigrants—improving family stability and employment prospects—while imposing narrow eligibility, added administrative complexity, and greater costs and potential delays for other applicants and taxpayers.
Foreign-born people who entered the U.S. as dependent children and who meet the bill's presence, admissibility, and education requirements can obtain lawful permanent residence, providing a direct path to green cards for eligible individuals.
Children and long-term dependent family members keep an earlier filing date for age determination, protecting them from 'aging out' and preserving eligibility that would otherwise be lost when they turn older.
Derivatives (dependent family members) who qualify retain earlier priority dates, which preserves their place in visa queues and can speed their eventual green-card issuance.
Expanding eligibility and reopening cases increases demand on USCIS/DHS/DOS/DOL, likely raising administrative costs, burdening staff, and increasing processing times paid for by taxpayers.
Strict eligibility rules (long documented presence requirements, college graduation, and clear admissibility) and related documentation burdens will exclude many long-residing dependents and nondegree workers despite strong U.S. ties.
People who waited more than the two-year reopening window or who cannot show extraordinary circumstances risk losing the protected 'age' benefit, creating a narrow cutoff that will deny relief to some eligible-seeming applicants.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates a green-card pathway and age/priority-date protections for long-term dependents of work-authorized nonimmigrants who completed U.S. higher education.
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 related petition process to let certain foreign-born individuals who spent many years in the U.S. as dependents of work-authorized nonimmigrants become lawful permanent residents, and changes "child" age-out and priority-date rules to protect long-term dependent children and their derivatives. It sets eligibility floors for lawful presence, adds a petition category, allows motions to reopen limited cases, preserves priority dates across petitions, and authorizes employment for some dependent beneficiaries. The bill mainly affects long-term dependents of work-authorized nonimmigrants who entered as children and who have completed U.S. higher education, by giving them a clearer path to green cards and stopping some common age-out and priority-date barriers that have previously blocked adjustment of status.