Sponsors (136)
The bill substantially strengthens detainee protections, legal access, oversight, and alternatives to detention—benefits that improve fairness, health, and transparency—but does so at considerable fiscal and operational cost and with implementation and short-term safety/enforcement trade-offs that will require new resources and careful management.
People in DHS custody (especially low-income noncitizens) will get faster, fairer custody decisions, reduced wealth-based detention, regular reviews, and community-based alternatives to detention that provide case management and services instead of detention.
Detained noncitizens will receive timely legal orientation at intake and reliable private communications with counsel, improving their ability to participate in hearings and reducing wrongful or procedurally flawed removals.
The bill imposes nationwide detention standards, regular unannounced inspections, public reporting (including death-investigation reports and monthly facility data), and clearer congressional and public oversight, increasing transparency and accountability of DHS facilities.
Taxpayers and DHS budgets will likely face substantially higher costs—construction, facility upgrades, staffing, expanded inspections, contracting with NGOs, litigation payouts, and program administration—spread across many provisions.
Corrections and DHS personnel may face heavy operational and staffing burdens (more supervision, training, scheduling for orientations/visits/inspections, transport duties, and implementation of new standards), straining daily operations.
Banning solitary confinement and limiting electronic monitoring could create short-term safety and supervision challenges managing dangerous or disruptive individuals and may require new, resource-intensive approaches.
Based on analysis of 13 sections of legislative text.
Imposes national detention standards, bans solitary for detainees, expands legal access and oversight, phases out for-profit detention, and speeds custody hearings with a presumption of release.
Official title: To provide standards for facilities at which aliens in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security are detained, and for other purposes.
Introduced December 3, 2025 by Pramila Jayapal · Last progress December 3, 2025
Rewrites how the Department of Homeland Security detains noncitizens by banning solitary confinement, requiring legal orientation and confidential access to counsel, expanding congressional oversight and unannounced inspections, and setting enforceable national detention standards. It phases out for-profit detention facilities, shortens and changes detention and removal procedures to speed custody decisions, expand release presumptions, create timely hearings and reviews, and create a private right of action for detainees. The bill also requires public reporting and root-cause investigations for deaths in DHS custody, mandates transportation to non-immigration court appearances, protects children from detention, and requires DHS rulemaking and implementation timelines (regulations within 1 year; phase-out of for-profit contracts within 3 years).