Trump’s USCIS Pick Has Track Record of Tough Immigration Vetting

Joseph Edlow, President Donald Trump‘s nominee to lead US Immigration and Citizenship Services, is expected to draw from his history at the agency and enforcement work to carry out the administration’s more restrictive agenda.

Edlow briefly helmed the agency as acting director in the final months of the first Trump administration, making him a known commodity for many career employees.

During that time, the agency navigated shutdowns from the Covid-19 pandemic and mandates for tougher vetting of H-1Bs and other visas, as well as other benefits like work permits. The fee-funded agency also almost ran out of money and narrowly averted furloughing two-thirds of its workers—a measure narrowly avoided thanks to an infusion of Congressional funding and steep spending cuts.

Immigration hardliners and supporters alike say Edlow’s experience would be an asset at USCIS, setting him up to more effectively carry out Trump priorities.

Immigration Experience

Before arriving at USCIS in 2019, Edlow had stints at the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy and as an adviser to House Republicans on immigration policy. He started his career as an attorney at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That experience will be beneficial to the agency and the Trump administration overall, said Julie Kirchner, executive director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that supports restricting immigration to the US.

“Certainly Edlow believes in enforcing the law,” she said. “I have no doubt we will see that reflected in USCIS policies as we move forward.”

Because Edlow never had to clear Senate confirmation before, upcoming hearings will give lawmakers their first chance to scrutinize his views on the legal immigration system.

He was seen as someone who’s easy to work with at USCIS and will be recognized by career staffers as a leader who knows the agency, said Lynden Melmed, a partner at immigration law firm BAL.

However, that knowledge of the agency and his background in enforcement could raise concerns among opponents of Trump’s deportation agenda, he said.

“Advocates for immigrants are going to be wary of likely changes to asylum and coordination between USCIS and ICE to help the president achieve his enforcement goals,” Melmed said.

USCIS Changes

Edlow served as chief counsel and then deputy director for policy and acting director during his previous stint at USCIS. The Trump administration at the time directed added scrutiny for a range of benefits, which translated in some cases to small tweaks to eligibility for benefits that nonetheless had a significant impact on immigrants.

USCIS, for example, amended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to require that recipients—young immigrants who came to the US as children without authorization—renew benefits each year, rather than every two years.

Immigration attorneys warned that change, which was later dropped, would create uncertainty over the renewal of work authorization or removal protections. The agency also added to the wait time for newly arrived asylum seekers before they could become eligible for work permits, and mandated additional fingerprinting and in-person interviews for some visa applicants.

“During that time period, that was the name of the game,” said Melmed, himself a former USCIS chief counsel under the George W. Bush administration. “He’ll stay true to the president’s priorities.”

During Edlow’s USCIS tenure, the agency also launched an online registration system for H-1B specialty occupation visas, lowering hurdles to enter the annual lottery for the program heavily used by the tech sector.

And it issued a new fee schedule for visa benefits. Immigrant advocates sued to block those fee hikes in court; a new fee regulation issued by the Biden administration took effect last year.

Conservative Advocacy

After leaving government, Edlow launched a consulting firm for business immigration. But he stayed publicly engaged on immigration policy by signing onto letters critical of the Biden administration’s asylum policies and appearing as a Republican witness at congressional hearings on the US-Mexico border, where he accused former President Joe Biden of abusing parole authority.

Immigration attorney Chuck Kuck said Edlow is “exactly who you would expect” White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to appoint.

“I suspect we’ll see a lot of mucking up the processes to make things more difficult for people,” he said.

Edlow also was named a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where he was listed as a contributor to Project 2025, the document that offered a blueprint for executive actions largely followed by the Trump administration in its first weeks.

Among the changes proposed at USCIS, it recommends reinstating fingerprinting requirements for even low-risk applications and requiring that the agency’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate sign off on all applications and petitions before approval notices can be issued.

Lora Ries, director of Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, said Americans “should have great confidence” in Edlow’s leadership because of his background in Congress as well as his work in immigration enforcement and in administering benefits.

“We look forward to seeing Joe do great things at USCIS to restore our immigration system to a lawful, orderly, and manageable one,” Ries said.

Jesse Bless, the former director of federal litigation at the American Immigration Lawyers Association who filed several lawsuits against the Trump administration, said Edlow’s experience with the agency “should allow him to implement the President’s vocal support for legal immigration.”

“Who knows, maybe he can ask Elon for tips to lower processing times?” Bless added.