Sponsors (13)
Official title: To 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 May 21, 2026 by Adelita S. Grijalva · Last progress May 21, 2026
The bill creates broad immigration relief and clear pathways to LPR status, benefits, and naturalization for noncitizen veterans and service members—protecting families and improving veteran support—but it substantially increases administrative workload, government costs, legal uncertainty, and raises public-safety, privacy, and fairness concerns that policymakers must manage.
Noncitizen service members and veterans (including some who were previously removed or are abroad) can be admitted or adjusted to lawful permanent resident status and are largely protected from deportation, enabling family reunification and legal stability.
Those veterans and service members who become LPRs can access VA and DoD benefits and have clearer/shorter pathways to naturalization (with special protections for continuous residence and good moral character), improving healthcare, financial security, and long-term integration.
The Act imposes no numerical cap on relief, so all qualifying veterans who meet statutory criteria can receive status adjustment or admission rather than being limited by an arbitrary quota.
DHS, DOJ, immigration courts, VA, and DoD will face substantial administrative burdens from reopening and adjudicating numerous removal and naturalization cases (with short statutory deadlines), likely slowing other immigration and veterans' processing and requiring more resources.
Taxpayers and state/federal benefit programs may incur meaningful added costs as newly eligible LPRs receive VA/DoD benefits, pensions, and other services previously unavailable to them.
The waivers, narrowed deportability criteria, and some special rules could allow individuals with serious convictions or security-related concerns to remain or naturalize in ways that raise public-safety and national-security concerns for some communities.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Creates an administrative pathway for eligible noncitizen veterans and service members to obtain LPR status, bars their deportation except for serious violent crimes, and restores access to naturalization and veterans benefits.
Allows many noncitizen veterans and certain service members to become lawful permanent residents and protects veterans and service members from deportation except for serious violent crimes. It directs DHS and DOJ to create application and adjudication processes, reopen past removal cases for veterans, and issue regulations quickly so eligible veterans can adjust status and access naturalization and veterans benefits. The bill bars removal of veterans and service members unless convicted of a defined "crime of violence," requires DHS to identify and track service-related information in immigration records, and mandates that LPRs granted under the program be treated as if prior removals or inadmissibility did not block naturalization or receipt of veteran benefits. Agencies must issue regulations within 90 days and programs/adjudications within 180 days of enactment.