House Passes Deporting Fraudsters Act 231-186: Vote Breakdown and What It Does

On March 18, 2026, the House of Representatives passed the Deporting Fraudsters Act of 2026 (H.R. 1958) by a vote of 231–186, with 20 Democrats crossing party lines — making it the most bipartisan immigration enforcement vote in the 119th Congress to date. The following day, the House passed a companion bill, H.R. 4638, the BOWOW Act (228–190), adding deportation grounds for non-citizens who harm federally designated law enforcement working animals. A third bill targeting lead ammunition restrictions on federal lands also cleared the chamber the same week. All three now await action in the Senate.

What Is the Deporting Fraudsters Act?

H.R. 1958 amends the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to explicitly make two categories of conduct grounds for both inadmissibility and deportability: conviction for defrauding the United States Government, and unlawful receipt of public benefits. In plain English — if you're a non-citizen convicted of defrauding a U.S. government program (benefits fraud, welfare fraud, Social Security fraud, federal contract fraud, tax fraud), this bill creates explicit statutory grounds for your removal.

The bill targets a perceived gap in existing immigration law. Courts and ICE have long applied the "crimes involving moral turpitude" standard inconsistently to financial fraud cases, leaving enforcement dependent on judicial interpretation rather than clear statute. H.R. 1958 closes that ambiguity by creating direct, unambiguous deportability grounds that don't require a moral turpitude finding.

The bill was introduced in March 2025, ordered reported by the House Judiciary Committee on January 13, 2026, and formally reported on January 27, 2026 (House Report 119-467). It reached the House floor during the week of March 16, 2026.

The Vote Numbers: Who Voted What

The final House Roll Call #94 recorded 231 yeas and 186 nays, with 15 members not voting.

Republicans voted in total unity — 211 of 211 voting members backed the bill, with zero defections. The 20 Democratic crossovers represent roughly 10% of voting House Democrats. These members come predominantly from competitive or moderate-leaning districts where "tough on fraud" resonates as a populist, not strictly partisan, message. The full member-by-member vote record is available in the House Clerk Roll Call #94 XML file.

It's worth noting that 15 members (7 Republican, 8 Democrat) did not vote — a relatively small absence count for a bill of this profile.

The BOWOW Act: Animal Protection and Immigration

The following morning, the House passed H.R. 4638 — the Bill to Outlaw Wounding of Official Working Animals Act of 2025, better known as the BOWOW Act, via Roll Call #96. The vote was 228–190.

The BOWOW Act amends the INA to make any alien convicted of harming, injuring, or interfering with a federally designated law enforcement working animal — K-9 dogs, horses, or animals used in border patrol or customs operations — inadmissible and deportable. The animal protection angle partly explains its bipartisan pull: opposition to harming police dogs and border patrol animals cuts across party lines.

Across all three votes, Republican unity held at or near 100%. One Republican voted against H.R. 556 — the Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act, which prohibits federal agencies from banning lead ammunition or fishing tackle on certain public lands. That vote passed 215–202, a notably narrow 13-vote margin compared to the Deporting Fraudsters Act's 45-vote margin.

What the Week's Legislative Activity Shows

The House floor week of March 16–20 was dense with enforcement-themed legislation. In addition to the three bills above, the House also voted on H.J.Res. 139 (Roll Call #95), a proposed Balanced Budget Amendment that failed 211–207 — well short of the two-thirds majority (approximately 290 votes) required to advance a constitutional amendment. That vote was widely understood as a messaging exercise rather than a serious legislative attempt.

The three bills that did pass reflect a consistent theme: immigration enforcement legislation with targeted, specific grounds for deportability and inadmissibility. Each bill was reported out of the House Judiciary Committee before reaching the floor, giving each a formal committee record to support enforcement intent.

What Happens Next: The Senate Math

Both H.R. 1958 and H.R. 4638 now head to the Senate, where the 60-vote cloture threshold makes their path considerably more uncertain. The immigration enforcement mood in the Senate chamber differs significantly from the House's recent run of votes.

As a reference point: the Senate attempted cloture on DHS Appropriations (H.R. 7147) five separate times between February 12 and March 20, 2026 — and failed every time, most recently by a 47–37 margin on Vote #59 on March 20. An immigration enforcement bill arriving from the House would face the same arithmetic challenge: it needs Democratic crossovers in the Senate, where party cohesion on immigration has historically been stronger than in the House.

There is, however, a meaningful change at the departmental level. On March 22, 2026, the Senate voted 54–37 to invoke cloture on Markwayne Mullin's nomination as Secretary of Homeland Security (Senate Vote #62), with two Democratic crossovers — Sens. Fetterman (D-PA) and Heinrich (D-NM). Mullin's confirmation means a new DHS Secretary will be in place to implement whatever enforcement priorities the agency receives. The irony: the Senate still hasn't passed DHS's own funding bill after five failed attempts, but the department is about to have new confirmed leadership.

Whether H.R. 1958 and H.R. 4638 can accumulate 60 Senate votes remains to be seen. The House's 20-vote Democratic crossover on the Deporting Fraudsters Act suggests some bipartisan appetite exists at the district level — but translating House crossovers into Senate cloture support is a different calculation entirely, involving different constituencies and different political dynamics.