5. Department of Homeland Security · Notable · Needs Congress
Amend the TVPRA so all unaccompanied children can be returned home
Printed page 148 5. Department of Homeland Security
“If an alternative to repealing Section 235 of the TVPRA is necessary, the section should be amended so that all unaccompanied children, regardless of nationality, may be returned to their home countries in a safe and efficient manner.”
What has happened
- Not started
Congress has not amended the TVPRA to let unaccompanied children of any nationality be returned to their home countries. The only TVPRA bill to pass a chamber changes the vetting of sponsors, not the repatriation rules, so under the rule that progress is measured on this ask the ladder does not leave its first rung.
No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
A Requires-Congress ask, and the alternative the Mandate offers to the repeal it prefers (#349, also not started).
Searched 2026-08-28: presidential documents, final rules, proposed rules and notices in the Federal Register from DHS and its components; bills in Congress and public laws, from congress.gov; White House presidential actions; and federal court dockets (CourtListener), including a bulk snapshot of 1.2 million dockets. No bill amending section 235 of the TVPRA to allow the return of unaccompanied children of any nationality was found to have passed either chamber. The House-passed Kayla Hamilton Act (H.R. 4371) amends section 235(c) vetting and is the subject of #349’s negative search; it does not touch the contiguous-country repatriation provisions this Quote is about.
Reviewed 2026-09-28: two D.D.C. rulings on the executive’s attempt to do this without Congress. L.G.M.L. v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-02942 (TJK), memorandum opinion of 2026-09-21 (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10978377/lgml-v-noem/), opens: “Over last year’s Labor Day weekend, several Executive Branch agencies began to implement a plan to expel from the United States cer[tain]” children. I.G.I. v. Noem, No. 1:25-cv-03898 (DLF), 2026-09-22 (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10979387/igi-v-noem/), is an unaccompanied minor’s suit against the same defendants. Only the first 500 characters of each are in the federal records we keep and search, and we could not open either, so what they held is not known. It does not matter to the Status. This Quote asks Congress to amend section 235, and an executive plan to return children of a non-contiguous nationality is not an amendment, whether a court upholds it or stops it. No event.
- Action
- other
- Object
- Section 235 of the TVPRA
- ID
- 350