H.R. 3486 is the latest bill to take aim at the immigrant community

Collage of the statue of liberty and a chain-link fence

Sept. 19, 2025 9 AM PT

Share via
- Email
- Facebook
- X
- LinkedIn
- Threads
- Reddit
- WhatsApp

An alarming new bill has emerged from the House floor: On Sept. 11, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3486, also known as the “Stop Illegal Entry Act of 2025.”

The bill seeks to impose an increased maximum imprisonment period for individuals who have been caught crossing the border without authorization more than once from two years to five years.

It also establishes a minimum prison term of five years and permits a life sentence for people who improperly enter or attempt to improperly enter the country and then are convicted of a felony.

Additionally, it proposes a jump from a maximum imprisonment term of two years to 10 years for individuals who had been denied entry into or removed from the U.S., then later attempt to enter without prior approval. The bill goes on to put forward that individuals who had been denied entry or removed at least three times and later attempt to enter the U.S. shall be fined or imprisoned for up to 10 years, or both.

Lastly, it would establish a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 10 years and up to a life sentence for anyone who was convicted of a felony before removal, or convicted of illegal reentry at least twice before removal, who then enters or attempts to enter the country.

Several of Southern California’s House representatives spoke out against the results of the vote.

The Democratic congressman from California’s 45th District, Derek Tran — who voted against the bill last week — rejected the essence of the proposal.

“This bill promotes racist tactics while doing nothing to increase meaningful enforcement of our immigration laws. Additionally, it would strain our already-overburdened justice system, exploding costs and misdirecting resources that should be used to detain violent criminals,” Tran said in a statement last week.

“Our deficit has already reached an unacceptable $37 trillion — mandating more unnecessary federal expenditures would add an even greater financial burden for our children to bear. This legislation will only sow more division in our communities and push us further from meaningful bipartisan immigration reform.”

Rep. Dave Min, who serves California’s 47th District in Orange County, also released a statement about why he voted against the bill.

“[T]his bill, combined with the Supreme Court’s clearly wrong decision allowing [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to detain people based on ethnicity, race, language, or place of employment, will give sweeping new authorities to ICE to perpetuate the mass incarceration of immigrants,” he wrote last week. “I am deeply concerned that H.R. 3486 will lead to more violent attacks and unlawful arrests by ICE of the people I represent.”

But what exactly does everything within the proposed bill mean?

“It’s a very confusingly written bill for a couple reasons,” Kate Voigt, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Times. “One is that there are buckets in the bill that are duplicative, and I think that is leaving some people to be confused about it and I think partially that’s on purpose.”

Voigt noted that, in her view, the two main goals of the proposal are to increase the maximum penalties against immigrants and to impose extreme mandatory minimum sentences, including life imprisonment, for nonviolent crimes.

While the bill, in part, frames itself as preventing potentially violent felons from entering or reentering the country, Voigt said that the parameters for what qualifies as punishable offenses are broad.

“For example, shoplifting would fall into that category. Immigration offenses would too. So two prior improper reentry charges are a felony,” she explained. “All of a sudden, someone who has two prior reentry charges is now subject to a mandatory minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison for only immigration-related offenses.”

Here’s an example scenario of what this process might look like in practice: A father with U.S. citizen children is removed from the country. He attempts to reenter the U.S. to reunite with his kids, so he now has two reentry charges against him. If the new bill were to come into law, that father would be facing life in prison if he tries to reenter a third time, despite not having committed any violent crimes.

“At its base, this bill is about trying to criminalize immigrants and target communities of color,” Voigt said. “This is a major expansion of mass incarceration. It would overwhelm all parts of the federal criminal justice system. ... Additionally, it would flood federal courts, overwhelm us at the ACLU, attorney’s offices, federal defenders and the Bureau of Prisons, and funnel billions of dollars into the private prison industry. It would also really deepen racial disparities.”

According to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, 99% of people sentenced on illegal reentry offenses in the 2024 fiscal year were Hispanic. Reporting from the Marshal Project found in ICE data that of the over 120,000 people deported in 2025 from January to May, 75% had either no conviction or none aside from illegally entering the country.

“This is absolutely part of the administration’s attempt to justify extreme policing, raids and mass deportations by criminalizing immigrants,” Voigt added. “This administration wants to say that immigrants are serious criminals and the way they do that is to prioritize charging immigration-related offenses and to make those crimes and sentences even steeper.”

Voigt also pointed to recently publicized plans by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to exemplify how immigrants are being further targeted by government agencies. In August, the USCIS announced it had updated its policy manual to state that it would consider “anti-American activity” when deciding whether to grant benefits requests.

“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible,” USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser wrote in a news release. “Immigration benefits — including to live and work in the United States — remain a privilege, not a right.”

The agency also has plans to enforce a universal immigrant registry; allow DHS to forcibly review the social media profiles noncitizens; restrict naturalization and grind processing to a halt; convert the USCIS into an armed enforcement agency; and prioritize denaturalization.

“This is all happening right at the same time that the Supreme Court just voted to green light racial profiling. These policies, and this bill and ones like it, if they do pass, are criminalizing people who are here unlawfully to justify removing them and to justify [the administration’s] narrative,” Voigt said.

“They’re preventing people who are eligible for relief from applying for and receiving benefits. That keeps people removable in the shadows, and then they’re stripping people of the status they’re eligible for, like TPS and DACA holders, which is rendering many longstanding community members undocumented overnight, and thus, detainable and removable.”

Besides the ethical concerns of potentially incarcerating large swaths of immigrants, there could also be a sizable financial offload on taxpayers.

With increased mandatory minimums on immigration offenses, plea deals for offenders would be less incentivized. That would then lead to more cases going to trials, which requires more resources. It would also mean people will be in prison awaiting their trials for longer periods than if taking a plea deal.

The annual cost to incarcerate one person in a federal facility in 2023 was $44,090, the Federal Register reported in 2024. That would result in a total cost of roughly $440,000 per person if the proposed 10-year mandatory minimum was imposed for reentry offenders.

“It’s extremely expensive,” Voigt said. “It’s going to cost American taxpayers billions of dollars for the decade-long incarceration of people who are likely ultimately going to be removed from the country, meanwhile, it’s diverting resources from the federal system.”

The bill has now been received by the U.S. Senate and awaits a vote at an as-of-yet undetermined time. But Voigt has advice for what concerned citizens can do, as the bill sits in the long queue of the Senate’s motions.

“Everyone should be talking to their senators, so that members of Congress are hearing from their constituents who could be affected by this and who are outraged by this,” she said. “People can sign up for ACLU’s People Power movement, that can give you ways to push back and engage in grassroots advocacy. I think talking with community members and community organizations, and seeing what support mechanisms are in place in getting involved at the local level would be helpful as well.”

Comic this Week: Back-to-school season should fill students with curiosity, not anxiety about being separated from their families.

Julio Salgado is a visual artist based in Long Beach. His work has been displayed at the Oakland Museum, SFMOMA, and Smithsonian American Art Museum. (@juliosalgado83)