SECURE Act TPS Bill: Eligibility, Nationalities, and Outlook

The SECURE Act TPS bill, formally the Safe Environment from Countries Under Repression and Emergency Act, is a Senate proposal that would let current and former Temporary Protected Status holders, along with people eligible for Deferred Enforced Departure, apply for a green card if they have lived in the United States continuously for at least three years. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland reintroduced it on June 18, 2025 as S.2106 in the 119th Congress, with 35 co-sponsors. It sits in the Senate Judiciary Committee and has never advanced beyond committee in any prior session.¹

Who Would Qualify

The core eligibility rule is three years of continuous physical presence in the United States as a TPS holder or as someone eligible for DED. If enacted, a qualifying person could apply to adjust status to lawful permanent resident, the same status held by any green card holder.² That is a significant change from current law, under which TPS confers no path to permanent residency or citizenship and must be renewed by the Secretary of Homeland Security whenever a country’s designation is extended.

Family members are included. Spouses, domestic partners, children, and unmarried sons or daughters of a qualifying person could also adjust status, so long as they are physically present in the United States and otherwise admissible. The prior version of the text required unmarried sons or daughters to have been physically present for at least one year and treated cumulative absences of up to 180 days as not breaking continuity. Certain grounds of inadmissibility under the Immigration and Nationality Act would be waived for these family members, and any green cards issued under the bill would not count against the annual numerical caps.³

What Applicants Would Get While Waiting

The bill builds in protections that would take effect the moment an application is filed, or even earlier for people who are prima facie eligible and intend to apply:

Employment authorization and permission to travel outside the country while the application is pending.
Protection from removal while the application is pending or while a prima facie eligible person prepares to file.
Confidentiality of application information, with narrow exceptions for identifying fraud, so that submissions cannot be shared with immigration enforcement.
A requirement that the Department of Homeland Security justify to Congress any decision to terminate a country’s TPS designation.

Which Nationalities Are Covered

The 2025 version names ten countries whose nationals would be eligible: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.⁴ The National TPS Alliance, which backs the bill, has emphasized that it is drafted to cover affected populations even if a country’s TPS designation has been terminated by the time the legislation passes, so that people who lose status in the interim are not shut out.⁵

The population that could be reached is large. As of March 31, 2025, about 1.3 million foreign nationals held approved TPS across 17 designated countries, with Venezuela accounting for roughly 605,000, Haiti about 331,000, El Salvador about 170,000, and Ukraine around 101,000.⁶ Note that Venezuela and Ukraine are not among the ten countries named in the 2025 text.

Where the Bill Stands in Congress

S.2106 was introduced on June 18, 2025, read twice, and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. It carries 35 co-sponsors. No committee hearings or markups have been scheduled.¹

Van Hollen has filed versions of the bill in prior Congresses with similar results. In the 117th Congress, it appeared as S.306 on February 8, 2021 with 35 co-sponsors and was referred to Judiciary, where it received no further action.⁷ An earlier iteration in the 116th Congress drew support from advocacy groups including the American Friends Service Committee, which described it as a “strong, progressive bill” and highlighted that its family-member provisions avoided pushing relatives into the standard multi-year family visa backlog.⁸

Why the Bill Matters Now

The 2025 reintroduction came as the Trump administration moved to end TPS for most designated countries. The administration has terminated or attempted to terminate TPS for 13 of the 17 designated countries, putting more than one million people at risk of losing legal status and work authorization. By late 2025, terminations had already taken effect for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and some Venezuelan holders, affecting nearly 320,000 people, with additional terminations scheduled through 2026.⁹

Fees have risen sharply as well. Legislation signed on July 4, 2025 (P.L. 119-21) raised the TPS registration fee from $50 to $500, added a $550 fee for initial work permits and a $275 renewal fee, barred fee waivers, and capped work permit validity at one year.¹⁰ The same law will remove TPS holders’ access to subsidized Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage on January 1, 2027.⁹

The courts once offered a check on terminations. Judges blocked several of them, including a February 2026 stay of Haiti’s termination in Miot v. Trump, which the D.C. Circuit declined to overturn.¹¹ That changed on June 25, 2026, when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Mullin v. Doe that the TPS statute bars judicial review of virtually all challenges to TPS terminations.¹² With litigation largely foreclosed, Congress is now the only institution positioned to give TPS holders a durable status, which is what the SECURE Act is designed to do.

Supporters and Competing Proposals

The bill has drawn endorsements from a broad coalition. The AFL-CIO, representing more than 15 million workers through 63 affiliates, endorsed S.2106 as a “long-overdue path to citizenship” and warned that ending TPS causes job losses and supply chain disruptions.¹³ The National TPS Alliance, an organization of TPS holders, calls it a “strong solution” because of its coverage of populations whose designations have already been terminated.⁵ Other backers include the ACLU, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, SEIU, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and the Haitian Bridge Alliance.¹⁴

Among competing proposals, the SECURE Act is one of the more expansive. The National TPS Alliance has contrasted it with the ASPIRE TPS Act, which would grant only a provisional six-year status and require proof of “extreme hardship” before allowing a green card, and with the ESPERER Act, which would limit eligibility to nationals of four countries.⁵

Realistic Prospects

The bill’s odds in the current Congress are slim. Senate immigration debate has centered on the majority party’s enforcement legislation, the Secure America Act (S.2), sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham, which advanced 53-46 on a party-line vote in June 2026.¹⁵ The SECURE Act remains in the Judiciary Committee without scheduled action, and no organized opposition statements from specific groups appear in the public record examined here; the obstacle is agenda control, not a public fight over the text.

One recent development suggests some movement is possible on narrower pieces of the issue. In April 2026, a House discharge petition forced a vote on legislation to extend TPS for Haiti, which passed 224-204.¹⁴ Whether that energy can carry a broader adjustment-of-status bill through the Senate is an open question. For now, the SECURE Act functions as a placeholder for a policy debate rather than as legislation with a clear path to enactment.

1
Congress.gov. S.2106 – SECURE Act, 119th Congress
2
U.S. Senate – Senator Van Hollen. Following Trump Attacks on TPS, Van Hollen, 30 Senators Put Forward Bill to Protect TPS and DED Recipients
3
Congress.gov. S.306 – SECURE Act Text, 117th Congress
4
U.S. Senate – Senator Van Hollen. SECURE Act Summary
5
National TPS Alliance. Legislative Principles and Proposals
6
Congress.gov. Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure
7
Congress.gov. S.306 – SECURE Act, 117th Congress
8
American Friends Service Committee. Congress Considering Legislation to Protect TPS, DED, and DACA
9
KFF. Recent Changes to Temporary Protected Status Designations
10
Federal Register. USCIS Immigration Fees Required by H.R. 1 Reconciliation Bill
11
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Miot et al. v. Trump et al., No. 26-5050
12
Supreme Court of the United States. Mullin v. Doe, No. 25-1083
13
AFL-CIO. Letter Supporting Legislation to Provide a Path to Citizenship
14
Office of Rep. Ayanna Pressley. Pressley Commends Senate Partners for Introducing Bill to Designate Haiti for Temporary Protected Status
15
GovTrack. Senate Vote 136, 119th Congress