Sponsors (12)
Introduced January 27, 2026 by Cory Anthony Booker · Last progress January 27, 2026
The bill shifts U.S. immigration detention from a punitive, profit‑driven model toward much stronger legal protections, oversight, and community alternatives—at the cost of higher taxpayer spending, heavier operational burdens, and transition/security challenges.
Immigrants in DHS custody will get substantially stronger access to counsel, timely legal orientation, and faster detention hearings—improving case outcomes and due-process protections.
Children, primary caregivers, and other vulnerable people will be shielded from routine immigration detention (including moving unaccompanied minors to HHS custody) and receive protections that reduce trauma and family separation.
Detainees will benefit from a presumption of release, caps on certain post-removal detention, and new free, language‑appropriate community case‑management programs—reducing reliance on detention and supporting community-based alternatives.
Taxpayers and DHS budget holders will face substantial new costs—staffing, inspections, technology, facility operations, and community programs—to implement standards, reporting, legal access, and contract transitions.
Detention and court operations will incur significant staffing, scheduling, monitoring, and implementation burdens—straining field staff and courts and creating risks of service disruptions or reduced care time.
Security and public‑safety challenges could increase because removing solitary options, expanding presumptions of release, and imposing quick release timelines may make some high‑risk detainees harder to manage.
Based on analysis of 13 sections of legislative text.
Bans solitary confinement, requires rapid legal orientation and counsel access, mandates ABA-based detention standards with OIG inspections, phases out for-profit detention, and reforms custody and bond procedures.
Prohibits solitary confinement for people detained by DHS, requires prompt access to a nonprofit-run Legal Orientation Program and meaningful access to retained counsel, and sets binding detention standards based on the American Bar Association model. It orders annual unannounced OIG inspections, public reporting and required investigations of deaths in custody, creates a private right of action for standards violations, phases out for-profit detention contracts within three years, and changes arrest, custody, and bond procedures to increase presumptive release and speedy review.