AILA Recommends a NO vote on H.R. 3486 Stop Illegal Entry Act of 2025

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) urges you to vote NO on H.R. 3486, the Stop Illegal Entry Act. America needs sensible laws and policies that ensure order and the rule of law at the U.S. border. However, H.R. 3486 is an extreme approach that imposes disproportionately harsh punishments on illegal entry and reentry that are typically reserved for serious violent crimes, such as murder. By imposing such lengthy and mandatory sentences, the bill will allow incarceration of large numbers of people at great cost to American taxpayers without effectively improving border security. Instead of the extreme, costly and ineffective approach of H.R. 3486, Congress should enact bipartisan solutions that enforce immigration law and serve American communities while still providing a fair and balanced system.

H.R. 3486 imposes severe, disproportionate punishments that equate illegal entry to far more serious violent offenses.  ¹

If Congress enacts H.R. 3486, it will mandate incarceration of people who unlawfully enter for long periods of a decade or even life. The U.S. criminal justice system typically imposes lengthy sentences for serious and violent offenses. Reducing unauthorized entry at the border can be achieved but should not be done by condemning people to decades in prison. Under H.R. 3486, for example:

• The penalty for entering unlawfully more than once increases from 2 years to 5 years.
• The penalty for entering unlawfully after having been deported increases from 2 years to 10 years.  And if the person has committed a felony, they face possible life imprisonment.
• Someone who enters unlawfully and commits a minor non-violent offense such as shoplifting or failure to appear at a criminal hearing faces a mandatory 10-year sentence and possible life imprisonment.
• Someone denied entry at the border or removed 3 or more times who then enters or attempts to enter the U.S. faces up to 10 years imprisonment. Under this new offense, which counts attempted entries, someone who came to a port of entry 3 times seeking asylum and was turned away by CBP each time, who then returns a fourth time to the POE, could be prosecuted and face up to a 10-year prison term.

The bill will incarcerate massive numbers of people and will be costly to American taxpayers.

Already illegal entry and reentry prosecutions are extremely high with 40,594 charged for such offenses in the first 9 months of 2025. By imposing longer sentences for these immigration offenses, Congress would massively increase the number of people incarcerated in the United States. In 2017, the U.S. Sentencing Commission estimated a similar bill known as “Kate’s Law” would expand the federal prison population by nearly 60,000 prisoners over five years, a nearly 40 percent increase from the current population. Most of the people H.R. 3486 targets have no violent criminal background. Large-scale incarceration of this population is not a cost-effective strategy.

The bill will not effectively deter unlawful border entries.
There is little evidence showing that the aggressive prosecution of illegal entry offenses and imposition of lengthy prison sentences are effective deterrence. A 2015 DHS Office of Inspector General report concluded that CBP was not able to demonstrate the effectiveness of its “Operation Streamline” program which targets people who enter unlawfully for rapid prosecution.

America needs effective border solutions -- not extreme, ineffective measures.

AILA urges Congress to enact more effective border solutions than the extreme, punitive approach of H.R. 3486. Lawbreakers should face consequences, but they must be proportionate to the offense. The U.S. government should boost law enforcement to prevent drug and weapon smuggling across the southern border; increase resources at ports of entry to rapidly screen people and vehicles entering or leaving the country; and improve the asylum process to handle cases more rapidly and to ensure departures for those who are found not eligible after a fair hearing.

At the same time, Congress should expand capacity to process foreign nationals outside of the United States through programs like the UN-facilitated refugee program which reduce the flow of people to the border. Unregulated entries would also be reduced if U.S. government provides more lawful pathways for foreign nationals to enter the country with advance approval to meet the needs of American businesses and families. Read AILA’s solutions for border management.