Sponsors (18)
Official title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed Social Security fraud are inadmissible and deportable.
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Tom McClintock · Last progress January 3, 2025
The bill tightens immigration enforcement against Social Security/ID/COVID‑related fraud (including conspirators), improving fraud deterrence and removal authority but expanding deportable conduct and reliance on admissions, which raises risks of family disruption, due‑process problems, and higher government legal costs.
Immigrants convicted of Social Security, ID-document, or covered COVID-related fraud (including conspirators) can be denied admission or removed, reducing fraud-related visa/workplace presence.
DHS and DOJ will find it easier to remove noncitizens who committed pandemic‑related fraud, strengthening enforcement of federal benefit programs and potentially deterring future fraud.
The bill explicitly targets conspirators as well as principals by covering conspiracy convictions and admissions, closing a legal loophole that could otherwise allow participants in fraud schemes to avoid immigration consequences.
Noncitizens (and their U.S. family members) could face more deportations because the bill expands removal grounds to include certain fraud offenses that may be nonviolent or relatively minor, increasing family disruption.
Noncitizens who made admissions (for example in pleas, interviews, or pretrial statements) could be barred or removed even without a conviction, raising the risk of deportation based on statements rather than adjudicated guilt.
Ambiguous or broadly defined 'covered COVID offense' language may produce inconsistent enforcement and due‑process challenges for immigrants and immigration judges.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Adds Social Security fraud, ID-document fraud, certain COVID-related frauds, and related conspiracies as grounds for inadmissibility and deportability.
Adds convictions, admissions, or admissions of conduct for Social Security fraud, identification-document fraud, certain COVID-related frauds, and related conspiracies to the list of criminal grounds that make a noncitizen inadmissible to the United States and removable from the United States. The bill inserts new inadmissibility and deportability subparagraphs into the Immigration and Nationality Act to cover these offenses.