Sponsor
Nancy Mace
Representative · R-SC
Representative · R-SC
The bill tightens immigration screening to reduce potential security risks and standardize adjudications, but it expands vague, subjective denial grounds and intrusive vetting that heighten risks of discrimination, civil‑liberties harms, family separations, and higher administrative costs.
Taxpayers and the general public: Authorizes denying admission/removal of noncitizens whose beliefs or conduct suggest opposition to the U.S. constitutional order, which can reduce risks from extremist actors and enhance national security.
State and federal immigration agencies and applicants: Creates a uniform screening process with required interviews and records review before granting immigration benefits, standardizing adjudication procedures and potentially improving consistency in decisions.
Immigrants and racial/ethnic minorities: Broad and vague criteria (e.g., 'unlikely to assimilate', 'views incompatible', residual clauses) enable subjective application, increasing the risk of discrimination and arbitrary denials.
Immigrants, parents, and families: Expands deportability to include beliefs or speech, increasing removal risk for lawful immigrants and raising the likelihood of family separations and community disruption.
Immigration applicants and communities: Imposes intrusive background screening (including interviews of relatives and review of speech), creating significant privacy and free‑speech risks and chilling political expression.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a mandatory DHS "assimilation likelihood" screening and new inadmissibility/deportability grounds based on perceived incompatibility with U.S. principles or failure to assimilate.
Official title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to require assimilation likelihood screenings.
Introduced May 26, 2026 by Nancy Mace · Last progress May 26, 2026
Creates a new mandatory "assimilation likelihood" screening for anyone seeking immigration benefits and makes failure to meet assimilation criteria both a ground for denying admission and for deportation. DHS would interview applicants, review public statements, and where feasible interview relatives/others; it could deny benefits to people deemed unlikely to assimilate, holding views "incompatible with the principles of the United States," or whose presence would harm "cultural cohesion." Lists nine example categories of disqualifying views (including support for religious law supremacy, justification of political or religious violence, denial of constitutional rights, preference for authoritarian government, and refusal to learn English) and authorizes DHS, coordinated with State, to add further categories. The new screening requirement is inserted into the INA’s inadmissibility and deportability provisions and creates a new statutory provision directing DHS procedures for assessment and denial.