Sponsors
The bill increases accuracy, transparency, and oversight to reduce wrongful watchlisting and speed corrections, but it may slow adding legitimate threats, raise administrative costs, and leave some non‑citizen groups with unequal protections.
U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and other wrongly watchlisted people are more likely to be identified and corrected sooner because DHS must perform QA reviews and audits of nominations.
DHS must notify the FBI and NCTC within 24 hours of identified errors, speeding interagency correction and reducing the time individuals remain erroneously listed.
Annual, disaggregated reporting to congressional homeland-security committees increases transparency and oversight, giving lawmakers and state/local governments better data to monitor accuracy and hold agencies accountable.
More stringent QA and audit procedures could slow DHS nominations, delaying the addition of legitimate threats to watchlists and potentially reducing national security effectiveness.
The added administrative workload may raise DHS operating costs, potentially requiring budget reallocations or more taxpayer funding.
If definitions or implementation are narrow, some non-citizen groups on watchlists may not receive the same review protections, leaving disparities in how quickly errors are corrected.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires DHS to perform pre‑nomination QA, monthly audits, annual reviews of U.S. person nominations, notify FBI/NCTC of errors, and report corrections to Congress.
Introduced August 15, 2025 by Bennie Thompson · Last progress August 15, 2025
Requires the Department of Homeland Security to add quality-assurance steps and audits for nominations to federal terrorist watchlists and related terrorism databases. DHS must perform a pre-nomination QA check, begin regular reviews of nominations of U.S. persons within 90 days and annually thereafter, and start a monthly random audit program for all nominations; DHS must notify the FBI Terrorist Screening Center and the National Counterterrorism Center when it finds errors and report annually to congressional homeland security committees on corrections and recalls. The law defines key terms (e.g., "terrorist watchlist," "other terrorism databases," and "United States person"), sets short timelines for notification and consultation on erroneous nominations (24 hours to notify, 30 days to seek correction before consultation), and requires submission of QA determinations with initial DHS nominations.