Sponsors (28)
The bill strengthens the government's ability to identify and bar suspected gang members and increases reporting/administrative capacity, but does so at significant cost to immigrants' access to protections, due process, and potential increases in detention and litigation.
Immigrants identified as current or former gang members will be barred from entering or remaining in the U.S., which aims to reduce gang-related crime and community harm.
Establishes a centralized administrative designation process with periodic review, giving federal agencies and law enforcement a clearer, uniform mechanism to identify and target dangerous groups.
Requires DHS to report annually on numbers detained under the expansion, increasing congressional oversight and data transparency around detentions tied to the designations.
People accused of gang affiliation can lose asylum, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) relief, parole, and other protections — even for past conduct — putting vulnerable immigrants at risk of deportation.
The designation process permits reliance on classified evidence and limits defendants' ability to contest designations in removal proceedings, creating serious due-process and transparency concerns for noncitizens.
Expands mandatory detention to cover designated aliens and removes individualized parole discretion, likely increasing the number and length of detentions and raising detention costs for taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a new federal "criminal gang" ground for inadmissibility/deportability, expands detention, bars many immigration remedies, and sets up an administrative DHS gang-designation process.
Official title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act with respect to aliens associated with criminal gangs, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Tom McClintock · Last progress January 3, 2025
Creates a new, broad statutory definition of “criminal gang,” makes membership or participation in such gangs a ground for inadmissibility and deportability, and establishes an administrative DHS process (with DOJ consultation) to designate groups of five or more people as criminal gangs. It expands mandatory detention for people covered by the new gang grounds, bars many forms of immigration relief (including asylum, TPS, SIJ, most parole), permits DHS detention of TPS beneficiaries, requires DHS reporting and congressional notice around designations, and makes the changes effective on enactment and retroactive to past acts.