USCIS
Congress Expands Premium Processing to Help Cash-Strapped USCIS
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) suffered a budget crisis partially of its own doing and partially due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Although the agency did not need to go through with planned furloughs, Congress has nevertheless acted to provide the agency with a new way to… Read More
Federal Judge Limits Trump Administration’s Foreign Worker Ban
On October 1, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop enforcing parts of a presidential proclamation that banned many foreign workers from entering the United States. The court found that the president likely did not have the authority to issue the ban. Who does the ruling impact? The… Read More
How Trump’s COVID-19 Immigration Ban Has Impacted Family-Based Immigration
The Trump administration is successfully using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to alter the U.S. system of legal immigration. New government data makes clear that these changes will significantly increase employment-based immigration at the expense of people in the family categories—and without any involvement by Congress. On March 20,… Read More
Federal Court Halts Massive USCIS Fee Increases for Immigration Applications
A federal court halted a new rule that would have increased fees for immigration applications on September 29. The court explained that the rule, announced by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in August, is likely unlawful. Before the court issued its ruling, USCIS planned to implement the rule… Read More
USCIS is Preventing Asylum Seekers from Bringing Their Own Interpreters to Interviews
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has implemented a new temporary rule preventing affirmative asylum seekers—who request asylum while already physically present in the United States— from bringing their own interpreters to asylum interviews. Instead, the government will provide free telephonic interpretation in 47 languages. The agency says… Read More
Proposed 15-Day Filing Rule for Asylum Seekers Is Designed to Be Impossible
The Trump administration has spent most of the year trying to destroy asylum law—and the blows keep coming. On Sept. 23, the Department of Justice proposed yet another regulation aimed at certain asylum seekers that would stop all but the lucky few from receiving protections. How the Rule Would… Read More
ICE Violates the Fourth Amendment When It Detains People Without Probable Cause, Court Rules
A federal appeals court recently ruled that the Fourth Amendment requires a neutral decisionmaker to review the detention of anyone held based on an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer. The decision came after ICE attempted to detain an American citizen without probable cause and flagged him as… Read More
Women in ICE Detention Given Hysterectomies Without Their Consent
A whistleblower has come forward to expose serious allegations of medical malpractice at a for-profit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Ocilla, Georgia. The whistleblower—who was until recently employed as a nurse at the Irwin County detention center—worked with several non-governmental organizations to file two complaints with… Read More
Citizenship Backlogs at USCIS Will Block Hundreds of Thousands from Voting in the 2020 Election
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants might be prevented from voting in the 2020 election—even though they are just one step away from becoming new Americans. Years of fiscal mismanagement at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)—coupled with a series of policy changes under the Trump administration—have led to an… Read More
USCIS Wants To Increase the Amount of Biometric Data It Collects by Over 60%
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced plans to dramatically expand the personal information that it collects in support of immigration petitions and applications. This new rule will increase the total number of people who are required to submit biometric data from 3.9 million currently to 6.07 million—an increase… Read More
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