Sponsors (24)
The bill prevents large-scale improvised immigrant detention and redirects funds toward community health and housing—improving conditions and preserving local infrastructure—while constraining DHS operational flexibility and funding uses, which may cause short-term processing challenges, contract disputes, and legal uncertainty.
Low-income individuals and immigrants will see funds redirected from operating new detention models to community services such as affordable health care and housing, increasing access to social supports.
Immigrants will be prevented from being housed in newly converted warehouses, tents, or similar large-scale facilities, reducing the risk of mass improvised detention and protecting individual rights and liberties.
Immigrants and nearby local communities will face lower public‑health risks because the bill reduces the use of improvised detention sites that can produce overcrowding, poor sanitation, and related hazards.
Immigrants and border communities may experience short-term processing or housing delays because DHS/ICE will have fewer facility and operational options during surges or at ports of entry.
Federal employees and government contractors could face contract terminations, reallocation disputes, or operational disruption because the bill restricts use of pre-enactment appropriations for detention construction or operations.
Taxpayers and some local communities that prioritize enforcement may perceive reduced public safety because funds redirected from detention operations to social services could decrease resources available for certain immigration enforcement activities.
Based on analysis of 1 section of legislative text.
Bars DHS/ICE from creating or using new large-scale immigration detention models and converting warehouses, tents, modular units, or similar structures for civil immigration detention, and stops pre-enactment federal funds for those projects.
Introduced April 23, 2026 by Rashida Tlaib · Last progress April 23, 2026
Prohibits the Department of Homeland Security, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from creating or using any new large-scale “immigration detention models” or from converting warehouses, industrial facilities, tents, soft-sided structures, modular units, or similar buildings to house, process, or detain people under civil immigration authority. It also bars the obligation, expenditure, reprogramming, or transfer of federal funds available before enactment to establish, construct, renovate, expand, or operate such models or facilities, and requires amounts already obligated for operating such new models to be redirected to services like affordable health care and housing. Defines key terms (covered agency, detention facility, expand, new immigration model), cites findings about planned DHS spending on such facilities and alleged harms, and takes effect on enactment.