Sponsors (22)
Introduced December 3, 2025 by Catherine Marie Cortez Masto · Last progress December 3, 2025
The bill reduces financial and immigration-enforcement-related barriers for vulnerable immigrant children and their sponsors and clarifies some agency rules, while creating fiscal and administrative costs, potential processing delays, and limits on certain interagency data-sharing and enforcement tools.
Unaccompanied immigrant children and eligible special immigrant juvenile (SIJ) applicants (and their families/guardians) no longer have to pay specified USCIS and EOIR fees, lowering upfront costs for vulnerable youth and families.
Removes a financial barrier to obtaining or adjusting immigration status for eligible youth (SIJS applicants), improving access to legal protections and long-term stability for those children.
Individuals or entities that previously paid the repealed fee will receive refunds, and refunds are required to be issued within 180 days, returning money quickly to payers and reducing uncertainty about timing.
Exempting multiple applicants from USCIS/EOIR fees reduces fee revenue and could shift program costs to taxpayers or require higher fees for other applicants.
Fee exemptions and mandated refunds will increase application and refund-processing volume, adding administrative workload that could slow adjudication timelines and divert agency resources from other services.
Restricting access to sponsor information held by HHS limits DHS and other enforcement agencies from using that data to detect immigration fraud or violations, potentially hampering enforcement and fraud detection.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Exempts people who are or were determined to be unaccompanied alien children from several immigration-related fees, repeals a special immigrant juvenile fee provision, and requires refunds of fees that are repealed or converted into exemptions within 180 days of enactment. It also removes and renumbers certain statutory paragraphs (including some on body examinations), and bars Health and Human Services from sharing information collected under the body-examination authority with the Department of Homeland Security or other federal agencies for purposes of enforcing immigration laws.