Deporting Fraudsters Act of 2026

The bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to add a new ground of inadmissibility and a matching new ground of deportability for any non-U.S. national who has been convicted of, admits to committing, or admits to acts constituting the essential elements of specified fraud offenses. Covered offenses include SNAP benefits fraud, Social Security number or card fraud, theft or bribery involving federally funded programs, fraudulent identification documents, major fraud against the United States, mail fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and any other offense involving defrauding the federal government or unlawfully receiving a federal, state, or local public benefit. It would also make anyone who falls under either new ground ineligible for any relief available under the immigration laws, explicitly including protection against removal to a country where the person fears torture. The bill does not create new criminal offenses; it only attaches immigration consequences to conduct already criminalized elsewhere in federal law.

Non-U.S. nationals seeking admission to the United States or already present who have been convicted of, or admit to, public-benefits or government-fraud offenses, including SNAP fraud, Social Security fraud, or identification fraud. Immigration judges, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement would apply these new grounds in admission and removal decisions.

Individuals who fall under the new grounds could be barred from entering the country or ordered removed, and would lose access to forms of immigration relief they might otherwise seek, including protection from torture. The changes broaden the range of fraud-related conduct that can trigger immigration consequences beyond current law's more limited fraud-related grounds.

Once enacted, immigration officers and judges would apply the new inadmissibility and deportability grounds during visa adjudications, admission determinations, and removal proceedings, treating a conviction or an admission of the specified conduct as sufficient without requiring a formal conviction in every case. The bill's ineligibility-for-relief provision would apply automatically to anyone found to fall under either new ground, cutting off avenues such as asylum, withholding of removal, or torture-related protections that would otherwise be available.