The Lautenberg Amendment for Refugees from the Former Soviet Union: What the Law Says, the Program's Status in 2026, and Which Documents Are Translated

The refugee Lautenberg Amendment lets Jews, Evangelical Christians and members of the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches from the former Soviet Union establish a well-founded fear of persecution by asserting it with a credible basis. Public Law 119-75 extended it to applications submitted before October 1, 2026; refugee admissions remain suspended under Executive Order 14163 with exceptions.

Which Lautenberg Amendment this article is about

Two laws are called the Lautenberg Amendment. One is a firearms provision, the Lautenberg Amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968 (18 U.S.C. 922), unrelated to immigration. The other is section 599D of Public Law 101-167, enacted on November 21, 1989 and printed as a note to 8 U.S.C. 1157. It concerns refugee admissions for religious minorities from the former Soviet Union, and the State Department also calls it the Lautenberg Program. This article is about the second one.

What the law says

Section 599D(a) sets a reduced standard of proof. A person within a covered category "may establish, for purposes of admission as a refugee under section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, that the alien has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion by asserting such a fear and asserting a credible basis for concern about the possibility of such persecution." Section 599D(b) names two categories of people who are or were nationals and residents of a former Soviet state or of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania:

• Jews or Evangelical Christians (section 599D(b)(2)(A)).
• Current members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church or the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who "demonstrate public, active, and continuous participation (or attempted participation) in the religious activities" of those churches (section 599D(b)(2)(B)).

In 2004, section 213 of Public Law 108-199, the Specter Amendment, added religious minorities in Iran. The State Department's report to Congress for fiscal year 2024 (November 2, 2023) describes the program as a direct-access P-2 category for people in these groups "with close family in the United States," calls it "a family reunification program," and notes that applicants "may include Ukrainians who fled Russia's full-scale invasion."

A law that expires every year

Section 599D(e) limits the provision to applications submitted before a set date, so Congress extends it in appropriations acts. Public Law 119-75, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (February 3, 2026), covered fiscal year 2026: the standard now applies to applications submitted before October 1, 2026. As of October 8, 2026, no extension for fiscal year 2027 has been enacted; the continuing resolution Public Law 119-103 (September 2, 2026) runs through December 11, 2026 and contains no amendment to section 599D. No official source says whether the standard stays in force after September 30, 2026.

The program's status in 2026

Executive Order 14163 (90 FR 8459) suspended the entry of refugees under USRAP from January 27, 2025 until a finding that resumption is in the interests of the United States. Section 3(b) directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to "suspend decisions on applications for refugee status." Section 3(c) allows case-by-case admissions that the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security find in the national interest.

The suspension is still in place. The Presidential Determination for fiscal year 2027 (September 25, 2026, 91 FR 63119) sets a ceiling of up to 17,500 refugees, "primarily" Afrikaners from South Africa, and still describes Executive Order 14163 as the order "which suspends the entry into the United States of refugees." The State Department's Refugee Processing Center reports 16,292 admissions in fiscal year 2026: 16,287 from South Africa and 5 from Afghanistan, none from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldova or any other former Soviet state. These figures are by country, not by program; no official statement specifically about Lautenberg cases was found as of October 8, 2026.

The court case Pacito v. Trump

On March 5, 2026 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided Pacito v. Trump. It held that the plaintiffs "have not shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their challenges to Executive Order No. 14163, the cessation of refugee processing and admissions, and the funding of refugee resettlement services abroad," and reversed those parts of the preliminary injunctions, while affirming them "to the extent they require the Government to reinstate" cooperative agreements for resettlement services to refugees already admitted. Later rulings were not verified for this article.

Ukrainians in the Lautenberg pipeline

In a letter to Senator Cardin dated January 11, 2023, USCIS reported "almost 6,500 Ukrainian Lautenberg cases representing over 17,400 individuals in the USRAP pipeline" as of October 4, 2022, and estimated that about 3,500 Ukrainian Lautenberg applicants had been paroled into the United States under Uniting for Ukraine.

A separate Lautenberg parole program once existed for applicants denied refugee status. USCIS states on its page about green cards for Lautenberg parolees that the provision expired after September 30, 2011, that it stopped authorizing parole for new applicants in July 2011, and that although Congress later renewed the Lautenberg program, USCIS "as a matter of policy, has not re-started the parole program."

Documents in refugee processing: Form I-590

The refugee application is Form I-590, Registration for Classification as Refugee, edition 01/20/25. USCIS states in the Federal Register (90 FR 21325, May 19, 2025) that "regardless of age, each person included in the case must have his or her own Form I-590." Form G-1055 (edition 10/07/26) lists its fee as $0. The form asks for religion, native language, "identity documents, e.g., passport, national identification card and/or UNHCR identification card," and membership in organizations "such as religious organizations." Family relationships are shown by civil records: birth and marriage certificates, and, where a name changed, divorce or name-change certificates.

Which documents are in Russian or Ukrainian and need a certified translation

The rule is 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3): "Any document containing foreign language submitted to USCIS shall be accompanied by a full English language translation which the translator has certified as complete and accurate, and by the translator's certification that he or she is competent to translate from the foreign language into English." The Form I-485 instructions (edition 09/18/26) add that the certification "must also include the translator's signature, printed name, the signature date, and the translator's contact information." The documents usually in Russian or Ukrainian are:

• Birth certificates of every family member, including Soviet-era forms in Russian and the local language, translated in full with seals, stamps and the registry entry.
• Marriage, divorce and name-change certificates, which connect the current name with the birth certificate and show the relationship between spouses.
• Internal passports and ID cards used as identity documents; the biographic page of a foreign passport is usually bilingual and filed as is, while pages with stamps or handwritten notes are translated.
• Papers that relate to religion, where the applicant has them: a baptism certificate, a parish letter, a membership record. USCIS publishes no list of such papers; any of them in Russian or Ukrainian falls under the same rule.

Names keep one spelling in every translation, the Latin spelling in the foreign passport: the same person can be Oleksandr, Aleksandr and Alexander in different records, and USCIS compares the name on the form with each document in the file.

After one year: Form I-485 for refugees

INA section 209(a) (8 U.S.C. 1159) and 8 CFR 209.1 require a refugee to apply to USCIS for permanent residence one year after entry; refugees are notified of this on admission. The application is Form I-485. Form G-1055 (edition 10/07/26) lists the general I-485 fee as $1,440 on paper and $1,390 online, and $0 for a refugee or a person paroled as a refugee.

The instructions require evidence of refugee status, "such as a Form I-94 or a Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571)," state that refugees are not required to submit a photocopy of their birth certificate, and ask for a copy when it is available; a derivative spouse does not need a copy of the marriage certificate if it is unavailable. Each of these in Russian or Ukrainian is filed with a certified translation. Fees and editions change; USCIS publishes the current ones in Form G-1055 and on the I-485 page at uscis.gov.