A Decade of Immigration Legislation: What Congress Actually Passed Since 2017

Since 2017, Congress has considered major proposals addressing legal immigration, Dreamers, asylum, border enforcement, agricultural workers, employment verification and detention. Most of the sweeping proposals never became law.

Instead, many immigration changes Congress actually enacted were narrower measures or provisions included inside much larger spending, defense and budget laws.

The table below gives the decade at a glance. The sections that follow explain what the major proposals would have changed and what ultimately happened to them.

One of the Trump administration's first major immigration proposals focused not on illegal immigration, but legal immigration.

The RAISE Act, introduced by Republican Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, proposed eliminating the Diversity Visa Program, reducing categories of family-sponsored immigration and restructuring parts of employment-based immigration around a points system.

The bill never received a Senate vote and did not become law.

Congress spent early 2018 trying to resolve the status of immigrants protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, while negotiating changes to border security.

On February 15, the Senate considered four competing immigration proposals. Because these were separate amendments rather than a single immigration bill, they are documented individually in the sources for this section.

A bipartisan proposal associated with Senators Mike Rounds and Angus King received 54 votes but failed to reach the 60 needed to advance. A proposal more closely aligned with the Trump administration received 39 votes.

None of the four proposals advanced. The episode illustrated a problem that would recur throughout the decade: an immigration proposal could receive majority support in the Senate and still fail to overcome a filibuster.

The Republican-controlled House attempted its own immigration overhaul that summer.

The Securing America's Future Act proposed substantial changes to legal immigration, agricultural visas, border security and immigration enforcement. The House rejected it 193–231.

Republicans then considered the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act, another broad package combining border-security measures with immigration changes. It failed 121–301.

Despite Republican control of the House, Senate and presidency during Trump's first two years, Congress did not enact the sweeping immigration overhaul the administration sought.

Congress did enact more targeted legislation.

The Northern Mariana Islands U.S. Workforce Act extended and modified a transitional foreign-worker program in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. President Trump signed it into law in July 2018.

The contrast would become common: comprehensive immigration packages failed while narrower legislation had a better chance of becoming law.

After Democrats gained control of the House, the legislative emphasis changed.

The House passed the American Dream and Promise Act 237–187 in June 2019. It would have created pathways toward permanent residence for qualifying immigrants brought to the United States as children and certain people with Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure.

The Senate did not enact it.

Congress enacted another targeted immigration law in June 2019.

The Northern Mariana Islands Long-Term Legal Residents Relief Act created a special immigration status for certain long-term residents of the Commonwealth. President Trump signed it as Public Law 116-24.

The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act provides an important lesson in how Congress works.

The legislation addressed per-country limits in the employment-based green-card system and increased the per-country limit for family-sponsored immigration. The House passed H.R. 1044 by 365–65, and the Senate later passed an amended version.

But the chambers had approved different legislation and never reconciled their versions. The bill therefore never reached the president. Passing both chambers at different times is not enough: the House and Senate ultimately must approve the same text.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act proposed a Certified Agricultural Worker status for qualifying workers and changes to the H-2A agricultural guest-worker program.

The House passed it 260–165 in December 2019. The Senate did not enact it.

Agricultural immigration reform would return two years later.

While the headline bills struggled, Congress continued making smaller changes.

Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness, enacted through the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization law, allowed certain qualifying Liberians to seek permanent residence. Congress also addressed citizenship for certain children living abroad with U.S. military members or federal employees.

Other laws extended or modified immigration programs including E-Verify, the EB-5 Regional Center Program, Conrad 30 and the special immigrant religious-worker program. The most visible immigration fights were often not the legislation that became law.

President Biden entered office backing a very different comprehensive immigration proposal.

The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 proposed an earned pathway toward citizenship, changes to legal immigration, measures addressing migration from Central America and changes to border-management policy.

Like the RAISE Act four years earlier, the administration's comprehensive proposal never made it through Congress. H.R. 1177 remained at the introduced stage.

The American Dream and Promise Act returned in 2021.

The House passed H.R. 6 by 228–197, again proposing pathways toward permanent residence for qualifying childhood arrivals and certain people with Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure.

For the second consecutive Congress, the House passed major Dreamer legislation. It again did not become law.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act also returned.

The House passed the new version 247–174. As before, it proposed legal status for qualifying agricultural workers and changes to the H-2A program.

It did not become law.

The NO BAN Act addressed how much authority presidents should have to restrict entry into the United States.

It would have limited presidential authority under immigration law to suspend or restrict entry and expanded statutory nondiscrimination protections. The House passed the proposal, but the Senate did not enact it.

The debate highlighted a broader issue: when Congress does not rewrite immigration law, presidents retain considerable authority under existing statutes.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan produced immigration legislation that did become law.

Congress expanded the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program, increased available visas and modified eligibility and processing requirements. Congress also made certain Afghan evacuees paroled into the United States eligible for benefits similar to those provided to refugees.

Unlike many comprehensive proposals, these measures responded to an immediate crisis and moved through Congress.

The House's Build Back Better legislation contained significant immigration provisions.

They included temporary parole and employment authorization for certain long-term undocumented residents, recapture of unused immigrant visas and changes affecting some applicants caught in visa backlogs.

But the legislation changed substantially in the Senate and ultimately became the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Those major immigration provisions were not included in the final law.

One significant legal-immigration change did become law.

The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act, enacted through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, reauthorized the EB-5 Regional Center Program through fiscal year 2027, raised investment thresholds and established new integrity and oversight requirements.

Once again, an important immigration change became law through a larger spending package rather than a comprehensive immigration bill.

After Republicans regained the House, the legislative agenda shifted toward border enforcement.

The House passed H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023, by 219–213. The bill addressed border infrastructure, asylum, detention and removal, unaccompanied children, humanitarian parole, interior enforcement and employment verification.

It would have resumed certain border-wall construction activities, imposed new restrictions on asylum eligibility and significantly narrowed DHS's ability to use parole for broad categories of migrants.

The Senate did not enact it.

The most consequential congressional border negotiation of the Biden administration arrived in early 2024.

A bipartisan group of senators negotiated legislation providing additional resources for Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asylum officers, immigration courts and border inspection technology while making substantial changes to asylum processing.

One provision became particularly controversial: a new border emergency authority tied to migrant encounters. The legislation did not simply authorize 5,000 unauthorized immigrants to enter the country each day, as it was sometimes described. Instead, a seven-day average of 5,000 encounters would have triggered mandatory use of a new emergency authority allowing DHS to restrict processing at the border. The legislation contained additional thresholds, exceptions and requirements for continued processing at ports of entry.

The negotiated package failed to advance in February when a Senate cloture vote failed 49–50. The border provisions returned separately in May and failed again, 43–50.

The legislation never became law.

The House also passed the Laken Riley Act.

The legislation proposed expanding mandatory federal detention for certain noncitizens accused of specified crimes and giving states additional ability to challenge some federal immigration decisions in court.

The House passed H.R. 7511 by 251–170, but the Senate did not enact it during the 118th Congress. Unlike most failed proposals in this timeline, however, it returned almost immediately.

After the 2024 election, Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress and Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Congress took up the Laken Riley Act again. The Senate passed an amended version, and the House approved the final legislation 263–156. President Trump signed it on January 29, 2025, making the Laken Riley Act Public Law 119-1, the first law of the 119th Congress.

The law expanded mandatory detention requirements for certain noncitizens arrested for, charged with or accused of specified offenses and created new avenues for states to challenge particular federal immigration decisions.

A proposal that failed to clear Congress in 2024 became law less than a year later.

Some of the most consequential immigration legislation of Trump's second term did not carry immigration in its title.

The budget reconciliation law signed July 4, 2025 contained extensive immigration and law-enforcement provisions. Congress established or changed fees associated with asylum applications, employment authorization, humanitarian parole, Temporary Protected Status and other immigration processes.

The law also provided tens of billions of dollars in multi-year funding for immigration enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and additional Department of Homeland Security activities.

As with EB-5 reform in 2022 and earlier immigration provisions inside defense and spending bills, some major immigration changes occurred inside legislation primarily known for other issues.

Congress still has not resolved Dreamer status through permanent legislation.

The American Dream and Promise Act passed the House in 2019. A new version passed the House in 2021. Another version, H.R. 1589, was introduced in 2025.

As of August 18, 2026, Congress has not enacted it.