Sponsors (3)
The bill sharply strengthens protections for minors and survivors—setting 18 as the baseline marriage age, expanding data collection, services, and survivor remedies—at the cost of tighter immigration eligibility rules, added administrative burden and reporting requirements, privacy risks from detailed data, and time‑limited or unevenly distributed federal funding.
Children and teens nationwide: establishes 18 as the minimum marriage age (or the higher state age), preventing new child marriages and their associated harms.
People married as minors and survivors: creates a legal path to void marriages and preserves protections (including VAWA self‑petitioning), giving survivors a route to end abusive or unwanted unions.
Policymakers and service providers: funds and mandates federal- and state-level data collection and reporting (GAO studies, a Commission and biennial disaggregated data) to improve the evidence base for targeted prevention and services.
Immigrant spouses, fiancés, and families: tightens immigration eligibility and raises evidentiary standards for 16–17‑year‑old beneficiaries (and broadly redefines 'noncitizen'), likely reducing some family‑based admissions and creating uncertainty for cross‑state marriages.
Applicants and federal agencies: creates new administrative requirements (private interviews, education duties, GAO/Commission reporting, DOJ working group) that raise processing complexity, staff workload, and the risk of delays or higher costs.
Vulnerable minors and survivors: publishing disaggregated immigration and marriage data (sex, ages, dates) risks re‑identifying or exposing victims unless deidentification is rigorously enforced.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Raises federal age limits for marriage recognition (18) in immigration and on federal property, creates commissions, grants, reporting, and a DOJ model law to eliminate child marriage.
Official title: Comprehensively combat child marriage in the United States.
Introduced July 21, 2026 by Richard Joseph Durbin · Last progress July 21, 2026
Changes federal immigration and related rules to block or limit recognition of marriages involving persons under 18, creates federal studies and grants to address child marriage, and directs DOJ to produce a model State law banning child marriage. It also bans use of federal property to facilitate marriages of minors, authorizes targeted grants to States and increases certain violence-prevention grant funding for States that set 18 as the minimum marriage age, and requires GAO reporting and a national commission to study and recommend responses.