Senator Tom Cotton Proposes No Safe Haven for Terrorist Families Act to Revoke Visas

(UNITED STATES) — Senator Tom Cotton introduced the No Safe Haven for Terrorist Families Act on May 14, 2026, proposing to revoke visas held by immediate and extended family members of designated terrorists and other hostile foreign actors and to add a new basis for exclusion and removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, said the bill would close what he called a national security loophole that allows relatives of U.S. adversaries to remain in the country. “Relatives of terrorists have no business being in our country. My bill would revoke visas from family members of terrorists to keep Arkansans safer.”

The measure would create a new, permanent ground of inadmissibility and deportability. It would apply not only to spouses, parents and children, but also to siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, nieces and nephews of what the bill describes as covered foreign threat actors.

Those covered actors include people designated as global terrorists under Executive Order 13224, senior leaders of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, senior officials of state sponsors of terrorism or foreign adversaries, specifically Iran, China, and Russia, and people sanctioned for corruption or human rights abuses.

If enacted, the bill would require the Secretary of State to revoke an existing visa within 30 days of determining that a person falls under the new inadmissibility standard. The proposal also applies retroactively, regardless of when the family relationship was formed, and would bar affected people from most forms of immigration relief.

Cotton’s bill arrived after immigration authorities arrested two relatives of Qasem Soleimani in Los Angeles in April 2026. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, 47, and her daughter Sarinasadat Hosseiny, 25, after authorities found they had received asylum in 2019.

Department of Homeland Security disclosures in that case said Afshar traveled to Iran at least four times after receiving a green card. The enforcement actions were directed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

Recent administration statements tied to that push have sketched a harder line on immigration status for people seen as threats. On April 9, 2026, USCIS Acting Assistant Director Lauren Bis said, “It is a privilege to be granted a green card to live in the United States of America. If we have reason to believe a green card holder poses a threat to the U.S., the green card will be revoked.”

On May 15, 2026, USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said the agency is “evolving through organizational realignments to better protect American citizens and support our mission priorities.” A State Department statement dated May 16, 2026 attributed this message to President Trump: “President Donald Trump has ‘pledged that anyone who hurts Americans, or is planning to hurt Americans, will be found and held accountable.’”

An internal USCIS alert dated March 30, 2026 cast the same issue in broader terms. The agency review said prior screening and vetting measures were “wholly inadequate,” adding that “many applicants for naturalization and lawful permanent residence were not sufficiently vetted.”

Taken together, the bill and those statements point to a policy shift that reaches beyond individual misconduct and into family relationships. Under the proposal, legal status could end for hundreds, and potentially thousands, of people in the United States whose connection to a sanctioned or designated person falls within the bill’s definition.

That scope is one reason the measure is likely to draw scrutiny over evidence and process. The bill turns on family ties rather than a person’s own acts, raising due process questions about how the government would identify covered relatives, how those findings would be challenged, and how quickly those cases would move once a visa revocation order is issued.

The 30-day deadline would leave little time. State Department officials would have to revoke visas quickly after making an inadmissibility determination, and immigration authorities would face pressure to move just as fast against people already in the country.

The proposal also reaches into both future and existing cases. Because the restrictions would apply retroactively, a family relationship formed years before a designation or sanction could still trigger the new penalty if the legislation becomes law.

That retroactive feature would make the bill more expansive than a narrower sanction aimed at new visa applicants. A person already living in the United States on a valid visa could lose that status after the government determined that a relative fit within one of the law’s covered categories.

The list of covered relatives is also unusually broad. By extending beyond spouses and children to grandparents, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, the bill would sweep in family members who may have had no role in the conduct that led to a terrorist designation, sanctions listing, or inclusion among senior officials of a foreign adversary.

Cotton framed the issue in public safety terms, and the measure fits with a wider administration effort to tighten discretionary immigration levers. That effort has surfaced in public comments from USCIS, in actions led by the Department of Homeland Security, and in statements issued by the Department of State.

The bill would amend one of the central statutes governing who may enter or remain in the United States. Changes to the Immigration and Nationality Act carry consequences beyond visa issuance because the law sets the grounds for inadmissibility, deportability, and access to relief from removal.

Whether the No Safe Haven for Terrorist Families Act advances now rests with Congress. Cotton announced the proposal through his official Senate newsroom, while executive agencies have already signaled that they intend to press harder on vetting, visa scrutiny and legal status for people they view as connected to foreign threats.