Trump USCIS Nominee Joseph Edlow Gets Full Senate Confirmation

The Senate voted to confirm Joseph Edlow as the next director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency charged with administering green cards and other immigration benefits.

Edlow, who was approved by a 52-47 margin, enters the position with plans for the agency to play a key role in President Donald Trump’s enforcement agenda.

Trump now has his nominees confirmed to lead each Homeland Security immigration agency, except for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Prior experience at USCIS, including a stint as acting director in the last year of Trump’s first administration, is expected to be an asset for Edlow in pushing through tougher policies on enforcement and vetting.

He’s already signaled plans to axe postgraduate training options for foreign graduates and remove temporary immigrant protections expanded under the Biden administration. Edlow also promised to reduce backlogs for asylum and green card applications.

But he told lawmakers in a May confirmation hearing that “at its core, USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency.”

His nomination was praised by groups advocating to restrict immigration like the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Heritage Foundation. As a visiting fellow at Heritage he contributed to the group’s Project 2025 blueprint, which proposed policy changes such as adding biometric requirements for immigration benefits and expanding the role of the USCIS fraud detection unit in signing off on petitions.

During Edlow’s first go-round at USICS, the agency ratcheted up administrative hurdles that slowed approval of benefits. It added to the waiting period before asylum seekers could get work authorization and required Dreamers to renew Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protections more frequently.

USCIS during Edlow’s tenure also created an online registration process for the H-1B specialty occupation visa program heavily used by tech sector, making it easier for companies to enter workers in the annual lottery. Rapid growth of entries eventually led the agency last year to overhaul the registration process, giving each worker equal odds of selection. Edlow told lawmakers he would continue to combat fraud and abuse, which he said was “absolutely pervasive” in the H-1B program.

Democrats critical of his nomination raised concerns that Edlow refused to answer lawmaker questions about whether the government can defy a court order. They also were critical of Edlow’s opposition to the DACA program, which is the subject of litigation at the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Edlow started his career as an attorney for ICE and previously served at the Department of Justice and as an adviser on immigration policy to House Republicans. He consulted on business immigration after the first Trump administration but also continued to advocate publicly on more stringent immigration policy, lobbing criticism at the Biden administration’s approach to asylum and use of parole authority.