The U.S. House passed a bill requiring courts to impose permanent no-contact orders on convicted sex offenders and violent felons, a measure born from one Arizona mother's years-long fight to keep her abuser away.
Not a single member of Congress voted against it. H.R. 8481, the Kayleigh's Law Act of 2026, cleared the House on Monday with unanimous support, sending the bill to the Senate and marking a rare moment of bipartisan agreement on a measure that would permanently bar convicted offenders in federal sex crime and violent felony cases from contacting their victims, directly or indirectly, for the rest of their lives. No expiration when probation ends. No sunset when supervised release runs out. For life.
Rep. Abe Hamadeh, the Arizona Republican and former prosecutor who sponsored the bill, told Fox News Digital the legislation fills a gap that has forced survivors to return to court repeatedly just to keep basic protections in place.
"This is a common-sense type of bill where we're supporting victims, and we're prioritizing victims over criminals."
The bill is named for Kayleigh Kozak, an Arizona mother of five who was sexually abused at age twelve by Joshua Jacobsen, her teacher and soccer coach. Jacobsen pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and luring a minor for sexual exploitation. A court sentenced him to six months in jail and lifetime probation. But the legal ordeal for Kozak was far from over.
Thirteen years after the abuse, Jacobsen sought to have the no-contact order lifted. Kozak was hauled back into a courtroom to fight it. The following year, he tried again. Each time, the woman who had been victimized as a child had to sit across from the man who abused her and argue for her own safety.
Hamadeh described the burden that arrangement places on survivors:
"Can you imagine that you have to sit across the room from this man? That's something a victim should never have to do."
Nearly two decades after his sentencing, Jacobsen went further. He asked a Maricopa County judge to terminate his probation entirely, arguing that eighteen years of conduct showed he had reformed and was ready to "move on." The judge denied the request in June 2026, citing probation violations that included unauthorized contact with children and breaches of chaperone restrictions. Jacobsen remains on lifetime probation under the supervision of Maricopa County Adult Probation.
Kozak testified before the Maricopa County court during those proceedings:
"I am living proof that he is capable of sexually harming children. He consciously chose to violate me, and he was convicted of committing a dangerous crime against a child while he was in a position of power."
Cases like Kozak's illustrate a pattern that extends well beyond Arizona. Across the country, convicted predators, including teachers who sexually assault students, serve their sentences and then use the legal system to claw back access to the people they harmed. Kayleigh's Law targets that cycle at the federal level.
Hamadeh first met Kozak about five years ago while he was running for Arizona attorney general. They crossed paths again outside an In-N-Out Burger during his congressional campaign. He made her a promise.
"I told Kayleigh, I said, 'Kayleigh, the moment I get to Congress, it's going to be one of my first bills that I get done.'"
Hamadeh, an Army veteran, called the bill's passage a kept promise. "Promise made, promise kept," he told Fox News Digital. "To actually see it done has been really wonderful." He credited Rep. Andy Biggs, a fellow Arizona Republican, with helping move the legislation through the House Judiciary Committee.
On the day the House voted, Kozak and her five children joined Hamadeh at the Capitol. She posted on X that the country was "one step closer" to giving victims of violent crimes the permanent protection they deserve.
"No victim should ever have to endure the h*** I had to walk through. When I discovered protection wasn't permanent, I knew it had to change."
Hamadeh said the bill does not raise due-process concerns because it applies only after a conviction. "This is not about the due process beforehand," he said. "They ultimately have to be found guilty of a crime." Once that threshold is met, the offender loses any ability to contact the victim, permanently.
The problem Kayleigh's Law addresses is not unique to the United States. In Britain, outdated legal frameworks have shielded convicted predators from deportation, leaving victims without the protection the law was supposed to guarantee. The federal gap that Hamadeh's bill targets works in a similar way: once a sentence or probation term expires, the legal shield for the victim can vanish.
Arizona already has a state version of Kayleigh's Law on the books. Hamadeh said more than one thousand survivors secured lifetime protection during the state law's first year. Wisconsin has passed its own version as well. The federal bill would extend the same principle to cases prosecuted under federal law.
In a statement after the vote, Hamadeh's office said the legislation aims to end the "legal tug-of-war" that forces survivors to face their attackers in court repeatedly just to maintain basic protections. Hamadeh put it more bluntly:
"Victims should never again have to fill out another form, sit across from their abuser, or look over their shoulder because the sentence ran out, and the system shrugged."
The bill now moves to the Senate, where Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, is leading the effort to advance it. Hamadeh expressed hope that it would reach President Trump's desk before November.
"It passed unanimously in the House. It should pass unanimously in the Senate," Hamadeh said. "We should fix this once and for all and be able to save victims so much of this trauma and this terror." He urged Americans to call their senators and ask them to bring Kayleigh's Law to the floor.
Too often, the legal system asks victims to keep proving they deserve protection from people already found guilty of harming them. In cases involving threatening behavior after criminal charges, the burden falls on the person who was harmed, not the person who did the harming. Kayleigh's Law flips that default.
Hamadeh framed the stakes plainly: "Justice is not complete if the victim still lives in fear. Arizona already closed that gap. It is time the federal government did the same."
A system that makes a twelve-year-old girl's abuser serve six months in jail, then lets him spend the next two decades trying to erase the record, is a system that protects the wrong person. The House voted 435-to-zero to fix it. The Senate should do the same.
