Sponsor
Pat Harrigan
Representative · R-NC
Representative · R-NC
The bill strengthens national-security enforcement and clarifies denaturalization/removal authorities, but does so by expanding detention and deportation powers and narrowing procedural protections — increasing the risk of citizenship loss, detention, family separation, and legal uncertainty for immigrants.
People who have committed or materially supported terrorism (including some naturalized citizens and noncitizens) will be more quickly removed, denaturalized, or stripped of nationality, reducing the time such individuals remain in the United States and lowering potential public-safety risks.
Immigration and criminal/denaturalization proceedings can run concurrently and certain cases are prioritized in federal courts, which can speed case resolution, conserve government resources, and reduce delays in resolving terrorism-related matters.
Statutory provisions clarify legal standards and authorities (naming leadership roles, defining removability and the ties to terrorism statutes), which should reduce ambiguity for prosecutors, immigration authorities, and courts and improve consistency in enforcement and denaturalization cases.
Naturalized citizens and dual nationals face increased risk of losing U.S. citizenship or nationality for post-naturalization conduct or material support for designated organizations — in some cases without a criminal conviction — creating real risks of statelessness and loss of rights.
Immigrants convicted of (or alleged to have supported) specified offenses face a rebuttable presumption of deportability and expanded mandatory-detention certification, shifting burdens onto individuals and increasing the chance of detention or removal even where convictions could be overturned later.
Making denaturalized or designated-deportable people explicitly removable and increasing enforcement authority risks separating people with long U.S. ties from families and communities, with no statutory relief mechanism specified.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Expands denaturalization, loss-of-nationality, mandatory-detention, and expedited removal rules for conduct tied to designated foreign terrorist organizations and specified terrorism convictions.
Official title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deem specified activities in support of terrorism as renunciation of United States nationality.
Introduced March 17, 2026 by Pat Harrigan · Last progress March 17, 2026
Changes U.S. immigration and nationality law to expand grounds and procedures for denaturalizing, detaining, and deporting people tied to terrorism or designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). It adds new voluntary- and conduct-based loss-of-nationality rules, makes denaturalized persons explicitly deportable, creates expedited removal tracks and court prioritization for certain terrorism-related cases, and narrows exceptions to the usual exclusive-venue rules for removal proceedings. The bill names specific officials for detention-certification authority, allows the Secretary of Homeland Security limited discretion to decline continued detention when not needed for national security or public safety, and treats certain terrorism convictions and FTO membership or support as triggers for denaturalization, loss of nationality, mandatory detention certification, and prioritized removal proceedings. Removal may proceed in parallel with denaturalization but cannot be executed until denaturalization is final.