Sponsor
Sheri Biggs
Representative · R-SC
Representative · R-SC
The bill increases deterrence by imposing much harsher mandatory penalties for providing material support to terrorists, at the cost of greatly longer prison terms, reduced judicial discretion that can disproportionately harm immigrants and vulnerable defendants, and higher long-term incarceration costs for taxpayers.
Taxpayers: strengthens deterrence against providing material support to terrorists by imposing much harsher penalties, which could reduce terrorism-related harms.
Individuals charged or convicted of providing material support: face much longer mandatory prison terms (minimum ~20 years up to life), removing judicial flexibility to impose shorter sentences even in mitigating circumstances.
Judges and vulnerable defendants (including many immigrants): loss of indeterminate sentencing language limits judges' ability to account for coercion, lesser culpability, or other mitigating factors, increasing the risk of disproportionate outcomes.
Taxpayers and government budgets: much longer sentences will likely raise incarceration costs and correctional spending over time.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a mandatory minimum prison term of at least 20 years (or life) and removes indeterminate sentence language for material-support terrorism convictions.
Official title: To amend title 18, United States Code, to increase the penalties for terrorists.
Introduced March 24, 2026 by Sheri Biggs · Last progress March 24, 2026
Amends federal criminal statutes to impose a mandatory minimum prison term of at least 20 years (or life) for convictions for providing material support to terrorists and to designated foreign terrorist organizations, and removes language that previously allowed indeterminate or variable-term sentencing. The bill changes two federal terrorism statutes to replace current maximum-based phrasing with a statutory sentencing floor and deletes text that permitted open-ended term phrasing. The change increases mandatory punishments for a class of terrorism-related offenses and affects defendants, prosecutors, judges, and the federal criminal sentencing framework, but does not create new programs or funding.