We Did It! Historic Protections for Active Duty Military Families Included in Proposed Senate Defense Bill
We have historic, groundbreaking news!! Due to the fierce leadership of SFI’s BIPOC Caucuses and years of knocking on the doors of Congress – our collective stories were heard. Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee released its proposed National Defense Authorization Act for 2026 – and it included core tenants of our Military Family Bill of Rights.
The bill includes:
- Public notification process of sex offenders at military installations
Section 531 will require the Secretary of Defense to establish a DoD-wide notification process for military families when known sex offenders are working, living or accessing military installations where we live, work and where our children go to schools.
Further, the Secretary of Defense is required to submit a report to both the House and Senate Armed Services Committee to clarify if the Department of Defense needs to be declared a jurisdiction to improve notification compliance under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.
This language is a result of the dozens of heartbreaking stories told by military spouses and children who have have become targets of sexual assault and abuse due to the lack of recourse and redress. For example, there is no internal agency fully dedicated to enforcing spouses or children’s rights on military installations. This March, members of SFI met with key Senate offices to hold up a mirror to this reality.
- Increased accountability for military spouses and children who experience harm as a result of military life
When the military decides where to move a military family, a Permanent Change of Station or “PCS” will put that family – especially families of color – into hostile locations and ineffective support services. Included in the Senate NDAA FY 26’ includes a requirement that directs the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a review of the military service’s compassionate reassignment policies, and provide a report to Congress as no later than December 1, 2025, and a more detailed report to follow at a later date.
Last year – SFI members took to the Hill demanding that Congress require the services to report on the policies that trigger reassignment under compassionate or humanitarian conditions. Our advocacy resulted in language in the NDAA FY 2025 that required this brief. The NDAA FY 26’ references this briefing, stating that “The briefings provided by the services raise further questions about the circumstances under which reassignment would be approved for personal hardship and under other circumstances of injustice or severe iniquity.”
These policies are a response to the calls that SFI members, many from historically underserved and unheard communities and many from families of generational military service, have made. For generations, active-duty military spouses and children have shouldered the burdens of service—frequent relocations, housing and financial insecurity, and threats to physical safety—without the same rights as private citizens. The U.S. military is sworn to protect and defend the Constitution — a foundational document guaranteeing individual rights, liberties, and freedoms. Yet, within its own ranks exists a systemic failure: the denial or limitation of many constitutional and human rights for military spouses.
“In the words of MLK, we are ‘living in a tip-toe stance, never knowing what to expect, plagued with inner fears’. We have no idea who our neighbors are, yet we are told when we need to access support and benefits, to look to our community,” said Brandi Jones, Co-Acting Executive Director of Secure Families Initiative, & Founder of the PCS Safety Campaign “To the military families watching right now – your labor is real, your exhaustion is valid, and your voice deserves to be heard, not filtered through your spouse’s rank, not delayed by bureaucracy, not erased by tradition.”
Both components included in the NDAA are pillars of SFI’s Military Family Bill of Rights. Developed by active-duty spouses from across branches, ranks, and backgrounds, in its entirety the Military Family Bill of Rights establishes a baseline standard of safety and dignity for all military families, regardless of where their service member is stationed. Read more about the history of this campaign here.
What happens next?
The bill is coming up for a vote later in the year, and then conferenced with the House version before it is voted on again and then sent to the President to sign.
Help us get our language over the finish line by taking the following steps: