Sponsors (11)
The bill increases transparency and bars foreign officials who commit severe religious‑freedom violations from entering the U.S., but it also raises substantial due‑process, privacy, wrongful‑exclusion, and diplomatic risks by requiring public naming and granting broad, largely unreviewable executive discretion.
Religious organizations and the American public: the bill makes foreign officials who committed particularly severe violations of religious freedom inadmissible to the U.S., reducing the chance such actors enter the country.
Taxpayers, civil society, and religious communities: the identities of officials barred for severe religious‑freedom violations will be posted on a State Department website, increasing government transparency and public awareness.
State and federal policymakers: the bill ties action to existing statutory definitions (22 U.S.C. 6402), clarifying standards and potentially strengthening U.S. human‑rights messaging and diplomacy.
Immigrants and asylum‑seekers: individuals could be denied visas or admission based on extraterritorial conduct that is difficult to adjudicate, increasing the risk of wrongful exclusions.
Named individuals (and those accused): public posting of identities combined with the Secretary's sole, largely unreviewable discretion raises privacy and due‑process concerns and risks reputational harm or physical danger to people who may dispute the government determination.
U.S. diplomats, state officials, and intelligence partners: mandatory public naming could complicate diplomacy and intelligence sharing if disclosures harm foreign‑policy relationships or expose sources and methods.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Bars admission to noncitizens responsible for serious violations of religious freedom and requires State to publish identities of those barred unless withheld for foreign policy reasons.
Official title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict visa issuance to individuals who have directed, authorized, significantly supported, participated in, or carried out violations of religious freedom.
Introduced April 2, 2026 by Tim Moore · Last progress April 2, 2026
Bars entry to noncitizens who, as foreign officials or while abroad, were responsible for or directly involved in ‘‘particularly severe violations of religious freedom’’ or other defined violations of religious freedom, and requires the State Department to publish the identities of aliens found inadmissible under this rule on a public website unless the Secretary of State withholds publication for specified foreign policy reasons. The bill rewrites an existing inadmissibility ground to rely on statutory definitions in 22 U.S.C. 6402 and adds an explicit public-notice requirement with a broad, discretionary nonreviewable exception.