Sponsors (3)
Introduced June 23, 2025 by Michael Guest · Last progress November 20, 2025
The bill expands CBP's ability to operate with foreign partners—offering humanitarian aid, stronger law‑enforcement cooperation, transparency, and a compensation mechanism—while creating higher risk to U.S. personnel, potential civil‑liberties and diplomatic concerns, and the possibility of diverting DHS funds from domestic priorities.
People in crisis abroad will receive faster search-and-rescue and emergency medical transport because CBP officers can assist foreign partners, improving humanitarian responses.
Border communities will benefit from strengthened foreign law enforcement cooperation because authorized joint operations and capacity‑building can reduce cross‑border crime that affects U.S. communities.
Overseas victims (claimants) will have a mechanism for quicker compensation because DHS is authorized to pay foreign claims for damages caused by CBP operations.
Federal employees and military personnel face greater combat and legal risk because CBP officers conducting joint operations inside foreign countries could expose U.S. personnel and lead to mission creep abroad.
Immigrants and foreign nationals could suffer infringements on sovereignty and civil liberties because expanded overseas enforcement may raise rights concerns and complicate U.S. diplomatic relations.
Taxpayers and middle‑class families could face reduced domestic DHS services or implicit fiscal costs because DHS operating funds may be used to pay foreign damage claims.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows designated CBP Air and Marine officers to assist foreign governments (including joint operations abroad), defines permitted support, and permits DHS to use operating funds to pay related foreign-incident claims for five years.
Authorizes designated Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees with Air and Marine Operations authority to provide certain types of operational support to foreign governments, including participating in joint operations inside a foreign country when a formal U.S.-foreign government arrangement allows. It clarifies permitted support activities—monitoring/tracking/deterrence, emergency humanitarian assistance (such as search-and-rescue, medical aid, air-traffic control assistance, and transport), and law-enforcement capacity-building. Allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to use existing Department operating-expense funds to pay claims for money damages under federal law that arise in a foreign country in connection with these CBP operations, subject to a two-year deadline for submitting claims, a 90-day reporting requirement after the authority expires listing each payment and justification, and a five-year sunset on the expenditure authority measured from enactment.