Measure to reunite, protect immigrant families co-introduced in U.S. Senate by Hawaiʻi’s Hirono

Democratic Hawaiʻi U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono and Illinois Democrat U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth recently reintroduced the Reuniting Families Act of 2025, legislation that would strengthen protections for immigrant families and address long-standing problems in a family immigration system that hasn’t seen meaningful reform in more than three decades.

U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, a California Democrat, also introduced companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Immigrant families currently experience unnecessary obstacles and delays due to our country’s broken immigration system, keeping families separated for potentially long periods of time,” said Hirono in a release about the legislation. “By reducing family-based immigration backlogs and making common sense updates to how we treat families, the Reuniting Families Act will help take the first step in the right direction to keeping families together as they navigate our immigration system.”

Nearly 4 million people with approved visa applications remain trapped in a massive immigration backlog, with many waiting more than a decade to reunite with their loved ones.

It is a direct result of an outdated system that has not seen meaningful reform for more than 30 years.

The Reuniting Families Act would tackle these delays by recapturing unused visas, rolling them into future years, expanding who qualifies as a family member to include permanent partners and increasing the total number of available family preference visas and per-country limits.

“As Donald Trump’s inhumane mass deportation campaign rips apart families and communities across the country, it’s paramount we address the unnecessary barriers in our immigration system that have created backlogs and kept families apart for years,” said Duckworth in the release. “Our legislation would implement commonsense reforms to help end family-based backlogs, which keep too many with approved green card applications stuck in bureaucratic limbo, and help get more families where they belong — together.”

The Reuniting Families Act takes on several major challenges within the immigration system.

Among the key improvements are:

• More than doubling number of available family preference visas.
• Raising existing per-country yearly visa limits so the wait is not so long for countries with high levels of migration.
• Setting an absolute time limit on visa processing so no applicant has to wait more than 10 years for a visa if they have an approved application.

The bill is endorsed by several immigration organizations and others.

The full text of the legislation can be found online.