Sponsors (2)
Official title: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to establish a new class of nonimmigrant visas for public service employees and authorize lawful permanent resident status for certain individuals holding public service jobs who entered the United States as children, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 3, 2026 by Ami Bera · Last progress September 3, 2026
The bill creates new temporary work authorization and a pathway to lawful permanent residence for long‑term/DACA childhood arrivals and expands participation in national service—strengthening public‑service staffing and immigrant integration—while increasing taxpayer costs, administrative burdens, and raising enforcement, consistency, and legal‑challenge risks.
Undocumented immigrants who arrived as children and long-term DACA/qualifying-presence recipients gain a pathway to lawful permanent residence if they meet presence and public-service employment requirements, stabilizing jobs and access to benefits for them and their families.
Qualifying long-term undocumented or DACA recipients (and in some cases their spouses/children) can obtain renewable multi-year work authorization and defined public-service employment terms, creating more stable employment pathways for schools, universities, and nonprofits.
The Secretary may waive certain inadmissibility grounds for humanitarian, family‑unity, or public‑interest reasons, enabling applicants with past violations to qualify for status and public‑service roles they otherwise might be barred from.
Taxpayers and program funders may face increased costs for DHS processing, adjudication, enforcement adjustments, and expanded social or service programs as more applicants gain work authorization or permanent status.
Employers, state agencies, and program administrators (including CNCS) will incur additional administrative burden and complexity verifying eligibility, managing contingent offers, tracking multi‑year authorizations, and handling status-adjusted employee turnover.
Eligibility limits (e.g., 5 years lawful presence or specific presence criteria) exclude many recent arrivals and some immigrants, potentially leaving gaps in the workforce that the bill aims to fill.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Creates a W visa for long-term childhood residents in public service, a public-service-based green card path for entrants as children, and expands national service eligibility to DACA recipients and long-term dependent nonimmigrants.
Creates a new W nonimmigrant visa category for people employed in defined public service jobs, authorizes 3-year terms (renewable once), and permits spouses and minor children to work. It ties eligibility to long-term childhood presence in the United States (including certain DACA recipients and long-term dependents of specific work-authorized nonimmigrants) and gives DHS discretionary waiver authority for specified grounds of inadmissibility. Establishes a path to lawful permanent residence for people who entered the U.S. as children and have at least seven years' physical presence plus two years of employment in public service, and expands eligibility for national service programs to include DACA recipients and certain long-term dependent nonimmigrants.