Sponsors (4)
The bill expands and clarifies support (financial, mental-health, hotline, case information) for families of homicide victims—improving access to services—while creating privacy, administrative, eligibility‑based fairness, and fiscal trade-offs that could limit who benefits and increase costs.
Immediate family members of homicide victims ("angel families") would become eligible for compensation covering medical bills, mental-health care, lost wages for emotional distress, and funeral costs, giving direct financial relief to bereaved families.
States could design programs to cover emotional-distress wage losses and expanded mental-health services, improving access to counseling and economic support for low-income and grieving families.
Clarifying eligibility and definitions at the federal level may standardize options and help State programs obtain VOCA-administered funding more predictably, aiding program planning and consistency across states.
Tying eligibility to the perpetrator's immigration or criminal-organization status could exclude many homicide victims' families and create unequal access to benefits based on the offender's identity.
Providing new categories of compensation (mental-health coverage, wage loss for emotional distress) will likely increase program payouts and may require additional federal or State funding, raising costs for taxpayers or reducing funds available to other victims.
Linking benefits to a perpetrator's immigration or trafficking status will require verification and immigration-status determinations, increasing administrative burden and costs for States and the Office for Victims of Crime.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates an "angel families" victim category eligible for compensation tied to offender immigration status and establishes a DHS office to assist victims of crimes by certain noncitizens.
Official title: Authorize grants for crime victims to be distributed to angel families, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 13, 2025 by Roger Wayne Marshall · Last progress May 13, 2025
Expands federal victim compensation rules and creates a new DHS office to help victims of crimes committed by certain noncitizens. The bill allows state victim-compensation programs to treat “angel families” — immediate relatives of homicide victims killed by unlawfully present aliens or members of international drug-trafficking organizations — as eligible beneficiaries for medical (including mental-health) care, emotional-distress wage loss, and funeral costs. It also establishes a Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office inside DHS to provide outreach, a hotline, referrals, custody-status information, data collection, and periodic reports to Congress.