Agency Behind Green Cards, Work Permits Expands Enforcement Role

The federal agency charged with administering green cards and work permits dramatically scaled up its role steering immigrants into deportation proceedings long before its incoming director declared to lawmakers that it must be an enforcement body “at its core.”

US Citizenship and Immigration Services in the early months of the Trump administration has facilitated the arrest of hundreds of immigrants attending interviews at field offices. And it’s issued more than 26,000 charging documents putting others into the removal process at immigration courts—including H-1B tech workers in a post-layoff grace period. The agency also has detailed hundreds of officers to assist with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, blasted its social media feeds with warnings about the consequences of fraud, and even invited immigrants to “self-deport”.

Immigrants paying the agency for services are seeing enforcement mechanisms turned against them, said Sam Peak, labor and mobility policy manager at the Economic Innovation Group. “This administration is using that revenue to crackdown on its own customers, essentially.”

Immigration attorneys cautioned that USCIS has always played some role in enforcement, and that the agency’s work processing travel documents, work permits, and green cards continues. But newly-confirmed director Joseph Edlow’s vision and new policies go far beyond its traditional role, they said, and blur the line between USCIS and agencies charged with enforcing immigration law and border security.

Wait times, meanwhile, have ballooned for work permits and other applications in the early months of the administration after incremental progress under the Biden administration.

Arrests at Field Offices

Nearly 400 arrests took place at USCIS field offices in just the first 100 days of the Trump administration, a result of agency collaborations with ICE. Many of them were highlighted in a series of press announcements on the agency’s website.

While the Trump administration says the arrests are part of efforts to close vetting loopholes, attorneys and other stakeholders say they will have a chilling effect on immigrant communities.

Many detained immigrants are eligible for some form of relief, even if there’s a prior issue with their status. But the arrests will discourage many from applying for visas or other lawful status they’re eligible for under the law, said Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council.

“It’s a tactic by the administration to cause fear and confusion among the immigrant community,” he said.

Immigration advocates have sued the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security over the arrests of people appearing for immigration court hearings, which they say undermines due process and the legal system.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has received reports of similar arrests at USCIS interview appointments throughout the country, at offices in Miami, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Dallas, and other locations. That goes beyond the agency’s congressionally mandated mission, said Cristina Rodriguez, a policy and practice associate at AILA.

“It’s hard for attorneys to actually advise clients” about the potential for detention at in-person appointments, she said.

USCIS didn’t provide updated figures on arrests at field offices. An agency spokesperson said it’s long-standing policy that those with outstanding warrants may be subject to arrest, and that USCIS is “no longer turning a blind eye when criminal aliens attempt to gain immigration benefits.”

Kickstarting Removals

USCIS has also taken a more active role in starting removal of immigrants, boosting “notices to appear” for immigrant courts proceedings by 2,800% per month from rates under the Biden administration.

Those charging documents are typically triggered by visa overstays, criminal convictions, or loss of lawful status and have traditionally been the purview of ICE or US Customs and Border Protection.

A February USCIS policy memorandum laid out expanded use of NTAs when immigrants are denied benefits even when there’s been no finding of fraud, a departure from even the first Trump administration. In practice, the new policy has cast a wide net, pulling in “everyone from investors to skilled workers to students, even if they’ve followed all the rules,” said Leigh Ganchan, shareholder at Ogletree Deakins.

The USCIS spokesperson called NTAs “critical and lawful tools” for enforcing immigration law and added that the “days of unlawful and deceptive behavior are over.”

Multiple attorneys reported though that notices to appear have been issued to H-1B specialty occupation workers who recently lost jobs. Regulations allow those workers 60 days to find a new sponsor before falling out of lawful status, but they’re being put in removal proceedings even with a pending application for a new visa status or to change employers.

“It freaks people out,” said Jonathan Wasden, managing attorney at Wasden Immigration Law. “They get an NTA and they’re afraid to go to an immigration court and being put in detention.”

Wait Times Increase

Although many attorneys feared the Trump administration’s return would mean a spike in denials and evidentiary requests for H-1B visas, there hasn’t been a dramatic change in scrutiny of worker petitions so far. And new requests for biometric data like fingerprints from some H-1B workers renewing benefits or getting sponsored for green cards, while unusual, hasn’t led to a jump in visa denials.

The scrutiny applicants face can often depend on which field office they’re dealing with or what kind of benefit they’re pursuing, said Tsui Yee, an immigration attorney in New York. But constant visual reminders about potential fraud signal changes to messaging, she said.

“It seems to be all scare tactics and threats,” Yee said.

Attorneys have noted, though, that processing times for many applications have ground to a halt, illustrated by USCIS data this month showing record-breaking backlogs at the agency. Longer processing times for some benefits like work permits and immigrant petitions could reflect how staff are being redirected to enforcement, said Kevin J. Stewart, an immigration attorney in Oakland, Calif.

“USCIS has always been about enforcement on some level,” he said. “They have enough to keep them busy that they don’t need to be taking on the workload that ICE would normally have.”