Under House Judiciary Bill, America’s Immigration System To Be Upended, Making Cruelty the Law

Washington, D.C. – The House Judiciary Committee released a sweeping budget bill that would impose steep new fees on asylum seekers, work permit applicants, and families seeking lawful immigration pathways, while dramatically expanding family detention. The bill funnels billions to private prison companies, raises financial barriers to legal status, and strips away protections for vulnerable children. At a time when polling shows a majority of Americans already believe Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is too extreme, the bill doubles down by codifying the cruelty.

Statement from Kerri Talbot, Co-Executive Director of the Immigration Hub:

“The Judiciary Committee’s budget bill is a cruel and calculated attack on immigrants, families, and children. It prices people out of the American dream, erecting paywalls around the ability to seek refuge, safety, and lawful immigration. This isn’t about fiscal responsibility—it’s about enshrining cruelty into law, normalizing suffering and disappearances, and charging desperate families for a shot at survival. These fees are designed to box people out and deter lawful immigration altogether.

Meanwhile, taxpayers will fund sprawling tent camps, mass disappearances, and an authoritarian system built on fear and erasure. Every member of Congress must reject this shameful blueprint for state-sponsored suffering.”

What the Judiciary Committee’s Budget Bill Does:

• Creating Barriers to Legal Status: Imposes steep fees on unaccompanied minor sponsorships, asylum applications, work permits, parole, Temporary Protected Status, and diversity visas, turning legal immigration into a luxury only the wealthy can afford. It will end asylum for the poor. 

• Expands Mass Detention and Creates Dangerous Tent Cities. Funnels billions to private prison owners by expanding family detention without building new facilities—guaranteeing the widespread use of unsafe, unlicensed tent cities where families and children will suffer from poor medical care, neglect, and abuse.

• Extorts and Endangers Vulnerable Children. Forces families to pay $3,500 just to sponsor unaccompanied children with an additional $5,000 fee, discourages reunifications through invasive surveillance, and increases the risks of trafficking and exploitation. The bill does an end run around the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a bipartisan bill that protects unaccompanied children. 

• Punishes Immigrants for Government Failures. Slaps $100 annual fees on pending asylum cases and on every continuance, forcing immigrants to pay for systemic backlogs and stripping away basic due process rights.

• Evades the Law and Eliminates Accountability. Includes sweeping provisions intended to undo existing court injunctions, enabling the administration to sidestep legal protections and carry out mass disappearances and deportations unchecked.

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The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.