# The New Way Forward Act: What It Actually Does

This bill makes major changes to how the U.S. immigration system handles detention—the practice of holding people in custody while their immigration cases are being decided. Right now, the government can detain immigrants indefinitely while waiting for court hearings, and many are held in private for-profit detention facilities. This bill would fundamentally reshape that system.

The most significant change is ending mandatory detention. Currently, certain immigrants—including those with criminal records or who entered the country illegally—must be held in custody automatically. Under this bill, that would stop. Instead, immigration officials would have to make individual decisions about whether each person actually needs to be detained. The bill also requires the government to release people within 48 hours unless they can prove in front of an immigration judge that the person is a flight risk or danger to the community. This is a major shift because right now, the burden is often on the immigrant to prove they should be released.

The bill also phases out private for-profit detention facilities over three years, meaning the government would eventually run all immigration detention itself rather than contracting with private companies. Additionally, it creates a community-based case management program as an alternative to detention—offering things like housing assistance, legal services, and mental health care to help people show up for their court dates without being locked up. The bill specifically protects vulnerable people like pregnant women, LGBTQ individuals, trafficking victims, and people with serious health conditions, making it much harder to detain them unless the government can show detention is absolutely necessary.

New Way Forward Act

New Way Forward Act This bill makes changes to immigration enforcement, including ending mandatory detention in certain cases. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may not enter into or extend any contract with any for-profit entity to own or operate a detention facility. The bill provides for various protections related to detaining non-U.S. nationals (aliens under federal law), such as (1) requiring DHS to make an initial custody determination and establish probable cause within 48 hours of taking an individual into custody, (2) establishing in hearings related to such determinations a presumption that the individual be released, and (3) requiring immigration judges to impose the least restrictive detention conditions necessary. A DHS officer may not interrogate an individual as to immigration status based on factors such as the individual's race, religion, or spoken language. The bill removes mandatory detention requirements for certain individuals, such as asylum seekers with a credible fear of persecution. Certain individuals who were previously admitted into the United States may be removed only if removal proceedings commenced within five years of the individual becoming deportable or inadmissible. The bill also removes certain crime-related grounds of inadmissibility and deportability. The bill gives immigration judges discretion to provide relief from removal if the removal is not based on certain crime-related grounds. State or local officers are prohibited from performing certain immigration enforcement functions. The National Crime Information Center database may not contain an individual's immigration information. The bill repeals criminal penalties for improper entry or reentry into the United States.