Sponsors (8)
The bill quickly restores temporary legal status, work authorization, and protections for many Iranian nationals with paused USCIS cases—preserving families and economic contributions—while imposing administrative costs, creating narrow eligibility limits and exclusions, and raising implementation, fairness, and national‑security trade‑offs.
Iranian nationals covered by the bill (those with paused or specifically enumerated pending USCIS applications) can remain lawfully in the U.S. with temporary protection and work authorization, preventing deportation and restoring lawful status.
Eligible Iranian professionals and workers can continue working (including in critical sectors), preserving household incomes and U.S. economic output by avoiding sudden loss of workers and preventing financial hardship for dependents.
Covered applicants receive faster and more continuous work authorization (interim EADs within 30 days, automatic extensions for adjudication pauses and missed deadlines, and final EADs for the TPS period), reducing gaps in employment eligibility.
USCIS/DHS and therefore taxpayers will face increased administrative workload and costs (short processing deadlines, expanded extensions, reporting requirements), potentially straining agency capacity and requiring additional funding or staff.
The relief is narrowly scoped and exclusionary: it covers only Iranian nationals and pauses starting on/after Dec 1, 2025, and it bars many applicants (felonies/multiple misdemeanors, continuous-presence cutoff, physical presence requirement), leaving significant groups without relief.
Providing formal protections and work authorization to nationals of a country currently in hostilities or tension may raise national security and public‑perception concerns and could be seen as contradictory by some stakeholders.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Grants narrowly targeted TPS and expedited work authorization to Iranian nationals whose U.S. immigration applications were stalled by a USCIS adjudication pause starting Dec 1, 2025.
Official title: To provide temporary protected status and employment authorization to certain Iranian nationals adversely affected by the adjudication pause of December 2025, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 12, 2026 by Yassamin Ansari · Last progress May 12, 2026
Provides a narrowly targeted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for Iranian nationals who had pending U.S. immigration benefit applications that were not adjudicated because of a USCIS "adjudication pause" beginning December 1, 2025. It creates an 18‑month TPS designation limited to those eligible individuals, requires prompt adjudication timelines and interim employment authorization, protects periods of presence from counting as unlawful presence, and mandates reporting and rulemaking deadlines for implementation. Establishes eligibility rules, bars certain security and criminal actors, requires the Department of Homeland Security to issue interim and final employment authorization documents quickly, protects pending and future immigration filings from adverse effects, and requires periodic reporting to Congress and two rulemaking steps (interim final rule within 30 days and final rule within 180 days).