S. 4546: ASSIMILATION Act

ASSIMILATION Act

This bill overhauls the immigration system. It-

• Ends Chain Migration and Redefines Children: Abolishes all extended family-sponsored visa categories and slashes the statutory age of a sponsored child from under 21 to under 18 years of age;
• Terminates the Visa Lottery: Permanently repeals the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program and retroactively voids all pending applications from prior lottery selections;
• Establishes a New Merit-Based Green Card System: Caps employment-based visas at 140,000 annually and replaces traditional preference categories with a points-free evaluation system. To qualify, an applicant must satisfy at least one "Presumptive Positive Factor" (such as a salary at or above the 90th percentile, an offer in a designated National Interest Occupation at the 75th percentile, or extraordinary ability) while triggering zero "Presumptive Negative Factors" like limited English proficiency or sub-median wages;
• Reforms and Restricts H-1B Visas: Slashes the annual H-1B cap to 50,000, enforces a strict 3-year maximum stay with no extensions or renewals, sets a mandatory wage floor of 200% of the local median wage, and forces a 2-year foreign exile before an alien can attempt to adjust status;
• Eliminates F-1 Student Employment: Explicitly bans F-1 nonimmigrant students from being authorized to work in the United States, effectively killing the Optional Practical Training (OPT) and Curricular Practical Training (CPT) programs;
• Changes Public Charge and Sponsor Rules: Mandates deportability and green card revocation for any alien who uses means-tested benefits for more than 12 months in a 36-month period, while forcing their financial sponsors to earn at least 200% of the federal poverty line and post a minimum $20,000 asset-forfeitable surety bond per alien;
• Criminalizes Visa Overstays: Automatically voids nonimmigrant visas 10 days after expiration or status noncompliance, criminalizing an overstay of 10 days or more as a federal misdemeanor for a first offense (carrying up to 6 months imprisonment) and a felony for subsequent offenses;
• Restricts Executive Parole Power: Limits temporary parole to a strict, case-by-case maximum of 90 days, explicitly outlaws categorical or programmatic parole software, and prohibits any extensions or renewals without an express Act of Congress;
• Outlaws Deferred Action and Prosecutorial Discretion: Banishes categorical non-enforcement policies and explicitly prohibits the executive branch from granting blanket deferred action status (such as DACA) to any class of aliens;
• Expands Good Moral Character Bars: Imposes a permanent, lifetime naturalization ban on any applicant convicted of any felony, a single DUI, or domestic violence, as well as anyone found to have an unpaid tax liability, a history of public benefit fraud, or clear evidence of gang affiliation;
• Toughens Naturalization Requirements: Doubles the green-card waiting period from 5 years to 10 years for all applicants (including spouses of U.S. citizens), requires 10 years of flawless tax transcripts, and replaces basic literacy checks with a rigorous, upper-intermediate CEFR B2 English proficiency standard;
• Restricts Birthright Citizenship: Mandates that a person born in the United States is considered a citizen at birth only if at least one parent was a U.S. citizen, national, or lawful permanent resident at the time of birth, making a standard U.S. birth certificate insufficient evidence of citizenship on its own;
• Overhauls Asylum Protections: Imposes a strict safe-third-country transit bar, hits applicants with a mandatory $500 filing fee, expands frivolous claim penalties to include a 10-year admission bar, and completely bans employment authorization for asylum seekers;
• Raises the Credible Fear Standard: Elevates the initial border screening threshold to an evidentiary hurdle where an alien must prove it is "more likely than not" that their asylum claim is true and that they legally qualify for ultimate protection;
• Terminates the Flores Settlement Agreement and Mandates Family Detention: Statutorily supersedes the Flores consent decree to strip away any presumption against detaining minors, legally mandating that DHS detain alien children and their parents together indefinitely while misdemeanor illegal entry charges are pending;
• Overhauls Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Laws: Ends the non-contiguous country loophole to allow for the rapid repatriation of Central American minors, while forcing HHS to pipe prospective sponsor biometrics and addresses directly to ICE to automatically trigger interior removal proceedings against any sponsor who is unlawfully present;
• Mandates E-Verify: Requires all U.S. employers to enroll in and use E-Verify to confirm the identity and work authorization of all new hires, stripping out traditional "Safe Harbor" business defenses for substantive hiring violations;
• Increases H-2A Agricultural Wages: Forces agricultural employers to pay guest workers an hourly rate pegged to the highest of the local prevailing wage, the applicable minimum wage, or the average hourly wage of domestic workers in the region rounded up to the next whole dollar.