Sponsors (6)
The bill tightens enforcement—permanently barring and enabling removal of those who defraud child-care programs or are tied to terrorist entities—to protect program integrity and public safety, but it broadens immigration bars, expands detention and expedited removals, and imposes rigid administrative debarments that risk reducing child-care access, raising costs, and curtailing due-process and public oversight.
Taxpayers and state governments recover funds and face stronger enforcement when child-care providers commit fraud because HHS referral to DOJ and civil recovery mechanisms increase the chance of reclaiming misspent federal child-care dollars.
Parents and children are better protected from fraudulent or disqualified providers because permanently debarred individuals are barred from HHS-funded child care programs and from providing care through immigration exclusions.
National security and vetting are strengthened by expanding inadmissibility language to cover a broader set of roles tied to terrorist organizations and by enabling deportation/removal for certain fraud-related convictions or permanent debarments.
Immigrant child-care workers and families who rely on them will face reduced labor supply and higher child-care costs because permanent debarments, immigration bars, and chilling effects deter applicants and can remove existing providers.
Noncitizens face expanded inadmissibility, asylum and naturalization bars and more summary/expedited removals with limited hearings, increasing the risk of wrongful removals and loss of due-process protections.
Legitimate local child-care providers risk permanent exclusion based on administrative debarments, which can reduce local child-care options and harm families who depend on those providers.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Creates permanent debarment and federal recoupment for child-care fraud and ties such debarment to immigration inadmissibility, expedited removal, and mandatory detention for noncitizen providers.
Introduced January 14, 2026 by John Cornyn · Last progress January 14, 2026
Creates a new federal process to punish child-care providers found to have committed fraud: providers subject to a final judicial or administrative fraud finding would face mandatory federal recoupment, permanent debarment from HHS-funded child-care programs, and referral for criminal investigation. The bill also ties those debarments to immigration consequences—making permanently debarred noncitizen providers inadmissible, removable, ineligible for asylum or adjustment of status, and subject to expedited removal and mandatory detention in many cases. The measure requires States to help repay funds obtained by fraud or accept deductions from future administrative allotments, adds expanded criminal and immigration screening language for persons associated with terrorism, exempts federal agencies from some administrative rulemaking and paperwork requirements to implement these changes quickly, and takes effect on enactment with limited retroactivity rules for earlier conduct by noncitizens.