What Does H.R. 2 Do? Asylum, E-Verify, and Border Wall

H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023, is a House-passed immigration bill that would have restarted border wall construction, sharply tightened asylum eligibility, curtailed humanitarian parole, required every U.S. employer to use E-Verify, and toughened rules for unaccompanied migrant children. It passed the House in May 2023, never got a Senate vote, and expired when the 118th Congress ended in January 2025. It is not law. Its provisions, however, are being reintroduced piecemeal and folded into budget reconciliation proposals in the 119th Congress, which is why the text still matters.

Is H.R. 2 Law Right Now?

No. The bill cleared the House on May 11, 2023, on a 219–213 vote, sat on the Senate Legislative Calendar without a floor vote, and died with the 118th Congress.¹ In the 119th Congress, H.R. 2 was reserved as a placeholder for the Speaker and has not been reintroduced with the same text.²

What is happening is quieter. The House Homeland Security Committee released budget reconciliation recommendations in April 2025 that pulled border wall provisions from H.R. 2’s framework, and individual pieces — mandatory E-Verify, parole reform, asylum restrictions — have appeared in separate bills in both chambers. Reconciliation requires only a simple Senate majority instead of 60 votes, so provisions that could not survive a stand-alone Senate vote could still move as part of a spending package, subject to the strict rules on what counts as a budgetary measure.

Asylum Changes

The asylum provisions are the most consequential part of the bill for most people who cross the border seeking protection. They would have reshaped the process from the first screening interview to the final decision.

A Harder Credible Fear Standard

When a person at the border says they fear returning home, they receive a credible fear screening. The current standard asks whether there is a “significant possibility” the person could qualify for asylum — a deliberately low threshold meant as a preliminary filter.³ H.R. 2 would have replaced it with a “more likely than not” standard, requiring the person to show it is probable both that they could win their case and that their statements are true.⁴ That is a substantial jump in difficulty at the earliest stage of the process.

Port-of-Entry Requirement and Transit Bar

The bill would have limited asylum eligibility to people who arrive at an official port of entry and separately prohibited DHS from processing noncitizens who show up between ports.⁵ Anyone who crossed outside a designated checkpoint would be ineligible regardless of the strength of their claim.

The bill added a transit bar on top of that. A person who traveled through at least one other country on the way to the United States would be barred from asylum unless they had first applied for and been denied protection in that country.⁵ Because nearly everyone reaching the southern border travels through Mexico, and often other countries as well, the bar would have reached the vast majority of applicants.

Mandatory Detention

People placed in expedited removal proceedings, including those who passed a credible fear screening and were awaiting a full hearing, would have been required to stay in detention until a final decision. Today, many in that situation are released while their cases move through the immigration court backlog.

Humanitarian Parole Restrictions

Parole lets the executive branch admit noncitizens temporarily for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, decided case by case. Different administrations have used it to respond to crises involving Afghans, Ukrainians, Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans.

H.R. 2 would have rewritten the parole statute to bar DHS from granting parole “according to eligibility criteria describing an entire class of potential parole recipients,” which would end the large-scale humanitarian programs both parties have used. It also narrowed the underlying definitions. “Urgent humanitarian reason” would be limited to situations like a medical emergency, the imminent death of a close family member, or the return of someone already in the lawful permanent resident process. “Significant public benefit” would apply almost exclusively to people helping the federal government with law enforcement matters.⁶ An exception was written in for certain spouses and children of active-duty military members.

Border Wall and Border Patrol Staffing

DHS would have been required to resume all border wall construction within seven days of enactment, restarting projects that were underway or planned before January 20, 2021.⁷ The agency would have had to spend unexpired construction funds appropriated since October 2019 and could use materials already purchased for earlier work.

The bill set a floor of 900 miles of new physical barriers, tactical infrastructure, and surveillance technology along the southwest border, and authorized waivers of any legal requirements that might slow construction.⁷ On personnel, it authorized an end strength of 22,000 full-time Border Patrol agents and included retention bonuses aimed at chronic staffing gaps.⁸ A five-year border security investment plan and an expanded Border Security Deployment Program covered the technology side.

Unaccompanied Minors

Current law lets DHS return an unaccompanied child to their home country only if that country borders the United States, and even then it is discretionary. H.R. 2 struck the neighbor requirement and made removal mandatory, so unaccompanied children from any country could be returned more quickly and with less individual judgment by immigration officers.⁵

Officers would also have been able to permit a child to withdraw an application for admission even if the child could not independently make that decision. Children identified as trafficking victims or with credible fear would have been placed in formal removal proceedings with an immigration judge hearing within 14 days.⁵

A separate provision states there is no presumption against detaining minor children for immigration purposes and prohibits states from imposing licensing requirements on facilities that hold minors or families.⁵ That language was widely understood as an effort to override the Flores Settlement Agreement, the court order that limits how long and under what conditions the government can detain children.

Mandatory E-Verify for Every Employer

E-Verify is the electronic system that checks whether a new hire is authorized to work in the United States. For most private employers today it is voluntary, though some states and federal contractors already have to use it.⁹

H.R. 2 would have made it mandatory nationwide, phased in by employer size. The largest non-agricultural employers, those with 10,000 or more workers, would have had six months from enactment to begin using the system. Smaller employers would have gotten progressively longer deadlines, agricultural employers would have had three years, and employers with 50 or fewer employees could request a one-time extension.⁵ Employers who failed to comply would have faced civil and criminal penalties for hiring unauthorized workers.

Visa Overstays and Biometric Exit Tracking

The bill raised penalties for noncitizens who stay past the expiration of their visa. It also directed an audit of the biometric entry/exit tracking system, which Congress has mandated for decades but which has never been fully implemented at every port of entry.

Cutting Off Federal Funds to Border NGOs

DHS would have been prohibited from giving federal funds to nongovernmental organizations that facilitate or encourage unlawful activity or that provide services like lodging or immigration legal assistance to inadmissible noncitizens.⁵ The Shelter Services Program would have been eliminated entirely.⁸

What to Watch Going Forward

Even though H.R. 2 as a package is dead, the pieces are alive. Track the House Homeland Security reconciliation text for wall funding and asylum restrictions, and watch for stand-alone bills on E-Verify and parole. Whether any given provision survives the Senate depends on whether it can be shaped to fit reconciliation rules, which limit what counts as a true budgetary measure. If you are following a specific piece — an employer facing possible E-Verify obligations, an asylum seeker weighing options, a family relying on a parole program — the provision to watch is the one moving separately, not the original 2023 bill.

1
Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. Roll Call 209 – H.R. 2 Secure the Border Act
2
Congress.gov. H.R. 2 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): Reserved for the Speaker
3
GovInfo. 8 USC 1225 – Inspection by Immigration Officers; Expedited Removal of Inadmissible Arriving Aliens
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Congress.gov. The Secure the Border Act (H.R. 2): Asylum-Related Reforms
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Congress.gov. H.R. 2 – 118th Congress (2023-2024): Secure the Border Act of 2023
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Congress.gov. Immigration Parole
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Congress.gov. Text – H.R. 2 – 118th Congress (2023-2024): Secure the Border Act of 2023
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House Committee on Appropriations. H.R. 2 Secure the Border Act and Fiscal Year 2024 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill Comparison
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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. E-Verify Quick Reference Guide for Employers