Title IV, Section 407

This provision raises the evidentiary standard for credible fear determinations from "significant possibility" to "more likely than not," a fundamental change to immigration enforcement. Near-identical provisions have been introduced repeatedly across the 118th and 119th Congresses; all either died in Congress or remain pending, and none has been enacted. The design itself, raising the credible fear bar through an appropriations rider, does not match what passes.

The statutory baseline is clear and unchanged. The current-law definition at 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(B)(v) reads: "the term 'credible fear of persecution' means that there is a **significant possibility**, taking into account the credibility of the statements made by the alien in support of the alien's claim and such other facts as are known to the officer, that the alien could establish eligibility for asylum." This provision would replace "significant possibility" with "more likely than not," a materially higher bar.

Critically, that text has not been changed by any enacted legislation. The last amendment to § 1225 was the Laken Riley Act (Pub. L. 119-1, January 2025), which added subsections (b)(3) and (4) dealing with criminal aliens and did not touch the credible fear definition. The Big Beautiful Bill (Pub. L. 119-21, July 2025) amended § 1158 on asylum fees only. The "significant possibility" standard remains current law despite several Congresses of pressure to raise it.

No provision in the analyzed corpus that pursues this change, raising the credible fear standard from "significant possibility" to "more likely than not," has ever been enacted into law. That holds for close textual matches and for looser relatives that share only the goal and approach. The enacted track record for this policy is a clean zero.

The history here is stark. This text has a history of 29 standalone bills across six Congresses (113th through 119th), all pursuing the same goal: replacing the "significant possibility" credible fear standard with a higher evidentiary bar. That history includes the Secure the Border Act (H.R. 2, 118th) as a companion, which passed the House in 2023 and died in the Senate. None of the 29 bills was enacted. The closest analog, the Strengthening Authorities For Expedited Removal Act (H.R. 5838, 118th), was explicitly designed to raise this exact standard and also died in the 118th Congress.

As an appropriations rider specifically, the idea is even newer. The rider form appears in only two 119th Congress bills, this one and its Homeland Security predecessor (H.R. 4213, sec. 411), so it has no conference history to rely on. It is a new policy position dressed in appropriations language, and nothing about it is a continued rider.

The structural problem with this provision runs deeper than Senate opposition. An appropriations rider cannot permanently amend the Immigration and Nationality Act. It can only prohibit DHS from spending funds to conduct credible fear determinations under the existing "significant possibility" standard, and only for a single fiscal year. The INA definition at § 1225(b)(1)(B)(v) would remain on the books unchanged. That means this rider creates operational chaos (officers conduct interviews under one statutory standard but cannot use the appropriated funds for it) without resolving the underlying legal framework. Courts have consistently held that appropriations riders cannot override clear statutory mandates, and opponents would have a viable legal theory to challenge enforcement. This mechanism weakness compounds the political problem: Senate appropriators know the rider invites litigation and sets up a constitutional conflict between appropriations power and the INA, making it easier to justify stripping it in conference.

The 2023 Judiciary Committee report on the Border Security and Enforcement Act confirms the pattern: reforming the credible fear interview standard has been pursued as dedicated authorizing legislation in both chambers, alongside the appropriations route. The bill that report accompanies, H.R. 2640 (118th), carried "Sec. 103. Credible fear interviews" as a standalone reform provision and died in Congress. Earlier DHS appropriations committee reports (FY2016) show no comparable rider in that era. The appropriations-rider framing is a recent escalation with no prior conference success to point to.

No Statement of Administration Policy exists for the DHS appropriations bill carrying this provision, consistent with the bill not having reached the House floor. The administration's general immigration posture is strongly enforcement-oriented, but there is no formal White House statement on this specific credible fear change. The absence of a SAP is expected at this stage and limits the executive-posture signal. What the administration did and did not put into the Big Beautiful Bill suggests it prioritized other immigration enforcement mechanisms over a statutory credible fear threshold change.