Sponsors (7)
The bill strengthens constitutional protections and shields victims of abusive foreign practices in U.S. proceedings, but it increases legal uncertainty and costs for international commerce, risks restricting culturally or religiously based dispute resolution for immigrants, and channels enforcement through courts in ways that may delay remedies.
All people in U.S. courts (litigants, federal employees, state governments) will be protected from having decisions governed by foreign or religious laws that conflict with the U.S. Constitution, preserving constitutional rights and due-process protections.
Women, children, and immigrants at risk of harmful practices (forced marriage, FGM, violent punishments, forced religious conversion, suppression of speech) will have clearer protection because those practices are identified and prohibited as abusive foreign practices.
Residents, businesses, and state governments will have clearer legal footing because the Act affirms that U.S. law governs in U.S. jurisdictions and provides standards for refusing enforcement of foreign rules that conflict with U.S. protections.
U.S. businesses and parties to international contracts (including small businesses and taxpayers) may face higher legal risk, increased litigation costs, and reduced ability to enforce foreign judgments or arbitration awards in the U.S., making cross-border commerce less predictable and more expensive.
Immigrants and religious communities may lose access to dispute-resolution, cultural, or religious practices that rely on foreign or religious law, and could be stigmatized or have immigration benefits disrupted when those practices are treated as disqualifying.
U.S. courts and agencies will face added burdens to evaluate foreign forum procedures and foreign laws for constitutional adequacy, increasing case complexity, procedural costs, and delay for many litigants and government actors.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Bars federal entities from recognizing or enforcing foreign or religious laws, customs, or practices that conflict with the U.S. Constitution and federal law, listing specific prohibited practices.
Prohibits U.S. federal adjudicative bodies and federal instrumentalities from recognizing, enforcing, or giving effect to foreign laws, religious laws, customs, or practices that conflict with the U.S. Constitution or federal law. It defines covered foreign and religious laws by listing specific practices (for example, gender discrimination, forced/underage marriage, cruel corporal punishments, female genital mutilation), and directs courts and agencies not to apply such laws in choice-of-law, forum-selection, enforcement of foreign judgments, or forum non conveniens dismissals when constitutional protections would be lacking. The measure clarifies that the policy statement is nonbinding, preserves the rest of the law if part is struck down, saves the Federal Arbitration Act except where arbitration enforcement would violate constitutional rights, makes noncompliance reversible error on appeal, and does not create a new private cause of action for injunctive relief or compensatory damages.
Official title: To protect individual liberties guaranteed under the constitution of the United States of America and laws made pursuant thereto.
Introduced June 30, 2026 by Keith Self · Last progress June 30, 2026