Sponsors
The bill tightens who can seek asylum and expands DHS decision authority to reduce caseloads and irregular migration, but does so by raising screening bars and imposing permanent ineligibilities that risk denying protection to bona fide refugees and increasing deportations.
Immigration system and border agencies: Tightening asylum eligibility (denying claims by people who transited other countries without seeking protection and raising the credible-fear threshold) will reduce the number of asylum claims and caseloads, which can lower backlog and decrease pressure on border processing and immigration courts.
State and federal border authorities: Giving DHS explicit authority (in addition to the Attorney General) to make asylum-eligibility determinations can speed initial screening and case processing at the border.
Asylum seekers and refugees who lacked safe access to apply in transit countries: Will be denied asylum under the transit bar and risk being returned to persecution or other serious harm.
People seeking protection at screening: Raising the credible-fear standard to 'more likely than not' makes it substantially harder to clear the screening stage and increases the likelihood that individuals with plausible protection claims will be deported.
Undocumented migrants who entered unlawfully or used fraud: A permanent ineligibility bar eliminates future access to asylum for many who entered irregularly, blocking relief even for those who later develop valid protection needs.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced December 16, 2025 by Thomas Bryant Cotton · Last progress December 16, 2025
Changes asylum law to make it harder to get asylum, let DHS take on new decision authority, add permanent bars for certain unlawful entries and fraud, tighten the credible-fear screening standard, and allow a child to be detained with a parent for up to 180 days during expedited removal or asylum proceedings. It also adds a new transit-based bar when someone passed through another country and did not seek and receive a final denial of protection there.