Sponsors (9)
The bill offers a broad pathway to LPR status, citizenship, and benefits for many noncitizen service members and veterans—reducing deportations and restoring services—while imposing fiscal, administrative, legal, and public‑safety tradeoffs that could increase government costs, workload, and litigation risk.
Noncitizen service members and veterans (including some previously removed or in removal proceedings) can seek adjustment to lawful permanent resident status and a clearer path to naturalization, with no numerical cap and potential family-unity waivers so families can remain together.
Noncitizen veterans and service members get stronger protection from deportation: removability is narrowed (tied to specified violent-offense criteria), officers must ask about military service before initiating removal, and ICE removals get supervisory review to reduce wrongful expulsions.
Eligible veterans and newly adjusted LPRs regain or gain access (including retroactive access) to VA disability, pension, education (e.g., GI Bill), and health benefits, improving financial stability, education and medical care for veterans and their families.
Many noncitizen veterans who would otherwise have been removed or barred could remain in the U.S. (including reopening final orders and broad waivers), which opponents say weakens immigration enforcement and could raise public‑safety concerns.
Taxpayers and state/federal programs may face increased costs from additional administrative processing, retroactive VA and benefit payouts, and expanded eligibility for services (healthcare, pensions, education).
Implementing the law will substantially increase administrative and operational burdens for DHS/USCIS/ICE, VA, and DoD (case reviews, waiver adjudications, record adjustments, supervisory approvals) and may require new resources or staffing.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Creates a pathway for removed or otherwise-excluded noncitizen veterans to obtain LPR status, limits deportation of veterans/service members except for serious violent or national-security convictions, and extends naturalization and veterans benefits to successful applicants.
Official title: Require the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a veterans visa program to permit veterans who have been removed from the United States to return as immigrants, and for other purposes.
Introduced November 6, 2025 by Tammy Duckworth · Last progress November 6, 2025
Creates a new pathway for noncitizen veterans who were removed, ordered removed, in removal proceedings, or otherwise outside the United States to be admitted or have their status adjusted to lawful permanent resident, and bars most removals of veterans and service members except for those convicted of specified violent or national-security crimes. It requires DHS and DOJ to set up application and adjudication processes, allows discretionary waivers for certain criminal bars, extends military naturalization and veterans benefits to successful applicants, and mandates recordkeeping and procedural safeguards for identifying service members and veterans in immigration cases. The bill sets regulatory and implementation deadlines (regulations within 90 days, procedures within 180 days), removes numerical caps on beneficiaries, requires reopening or terminating prior removal proceedings for eligible veterans, and directs DHS to annotate and preserve service-related immigration records. It conditions removal protection on absence of a conviction for a defined "crime of violence," while giving the Secretary limited waiver authority in humanitarian or public-interest cases.