Category: Senate-confirmed federal official — Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (component of the Department of Homeland Security) Role: Director of USCIS since July 15, 2025, with authority over adjudication of immigration benefits, naturalization, asylum and refugee processing, and — since September 2025 — over USCIS employees newly granted arrest and law-enforcement authority Priority: P1 (Senate-confirmed DHS component head who directed a litigated, large-scale freeze on immigration and asylum adjudications for nationals of up to 39 countries; two federal courts have since held the underlying policies unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act)

Role

USCIS, the DHS component Edlow leads, adjudicates nearly every immigration benefit that does not involve active removal proceedings: naturalization, asylum, green cards, employment authorization, refugee processing, and most nonimmigrant worker petitions, including H-1B. Edlow has used that adjudicatory authority — control over who receives, keeps, or loses an immigration benefit, and how quickly — as the primary lever of his tenure, framing it explicitly as an enforcement function rather than a service function. In his first fifteen months, his agency has frozen adjudications nationwide for applicants from dozens of countries following the November 26, 2025 shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C.; armed designated USCIS employees with law-enforcement and arrest authority for the first time in the agency’s history; ended automatic extensions of employment authorization documents; implemented the administration’s $100,000 H-1B fee and a wage-weighted visa lottery; and launched a re-review of refugees admitted under the Biden administration. Two of the post-shooting policies have since been vacated or enjoined by federal courts as unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Background

Edlow previously served as USCIS’s deputy director for policy and chief counsel during the first Trump administration, and as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice. He was counsel to Rep. Raúl Labrador and the House Judiciary Committee, a visiting fellow at the Center for Renewing America and the Heritage Foundation, and founder of the Edlow Group LLC and the Law Office of Joseph Edlow LLC. On returning to USCIS, he said: “I am honored and humbled to have the opportunity to return to USCIS to serve as director and am grateful to President Donald J. Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem for their leadership and confidence in me.”[1]

Some secondary accounts describe Edlow as having served as USCIS’s acting director during the first Trump term; this profile does not assert that title. USCIS’s own announcement of his second-term appointment describes his first-term role only as “deputy director for Policy and chief counsel,” and no primary source confirming an acting-director stint was located in this research pass.

Basis for Inclusion Subject classification: Public Official — Senate-confirmed appointee, confirmed 52–47 (Record Vote No. 390, 119th Congress, 1st Session), July 15, 2025. Anchor: Edlow directs USCIS and has used that authority to freeze and re-review adjudications for applicants from dozens of countries, end automatic work-permit extensions, implement a $100,000 H-1B fee and wage-weighted lottery, and arm USCIS employees with law-enforcement authority — a documented, consequential set of policy actions squarely within the Immigration domain, two of which federal courts have since held unlawful under the APA.

Democratic Malice Assessment

Designation: None

Ideology vs. Malice determination: Edlow’s stated agenda — reorienting USCIS toward “restoring integrity” in the legal immigration system, tightening vetting, raising fees to match a reconciliation statute, and treating USCIS as an enforcement-supportive agency — is implemented through Policy Manual updates, Federal Register rulemakings, and a presidential proclamation: the ordinary channels of executive immigration policy, each falling within the Ideology Safe Harbor (regulatory action, policy positions pursued through executive authority, holding a position and executing lawful orders).

The one action considered under the five-factor borderline test is the adjudication freeze and country-based benefit holds ordered after the November 26, 2025 shooting of two National Guard members (PM-602-0192, PM-602-0193 and PM-602-0194, December 2025–January 2026). (1) Process subversion: the holds were issued as internal Policy Manual memoranda rather than through notice-and-comment rulemaking, which is how USCIS ordinarily updates adjudication policy and is not itself irregular; the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island nonetheless vacated PM-602-0192 and PM-602-0194 on June 5, 2026, finding the government’s stated national-security rationale “pretextual” and the policies unlawful and discriminatory under the Administrative Procedure Act (Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). (2) Targeted asymmetry: the holds applied by nationality — first 19, then 39 countries plus the Palestinian Authority — which is how the administration’s travel-ban-linked immigration restrictions operate as a matter of course, not documented evidence of intent to target a group beyond the proclamation’s own list. (3) Expert rejection: no record of nonpartisan experts warning Edlow in advance of a specific harm, and being overruled, was located. (4) Pattern context: the freeze is one piece of a sustained program — alongside Operation PARRIS’s refugee re-review, the EAD changes, and the new discretionary-factors policy — that collectively re-weighted adjudication toward denial and delay; this factor is met. (5) Accountability avoidance: after the June 2026 vacatur, a second court — the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California — certified a class and granted a preliminary injunction against the same PM-602-0192/PM-602-0194 holds in August 2026 (Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Edlow), which on the public record is unexplained: it is not confirmed whether USCIS continued applying the vacated memos, reissued a narrower version under the same numbers, or applied them in a scope the June ruling did not reach. Absent a documented basis for attributing continued application to Edlow personally, this factor is not established.

Two of five factors are met (pattern context, and — more weakly — targeted asymmetry); the gate’s threshold of three is not reached, and the action is not scored. That one factor is a federal court’s own finding of pretext is a serious fact this profile documents rather than treats as dispositive of personal intent: a court finding a policy’s stated rationale unlawful is a finding about the policy, not, on this record, a finding about Edlow’s individual knowledge or design.

Framework note: The Democratic Malice Assessment evaluates subversion of democratic mechanisms themselves, not policy disagreement or litigation losses. An agency losing in court under the APA — even losing because a court found its stated rationale pretextual — is the courts functioning as a check, not by itself evidence that the official who signed the policy acted with the intent the DMA requires.

Framework disclosure: This assessment applies the published DMA framework’s Ideology vs. Malice Gate and concludes the threshold for a malice designation is not met on current evidence. It would be revisited if a document, communication, or testimony tied the post-vacatur continuation of the benefit holds to a decision by Edlow specifically.

Documented Actions

1. Senate confirmation and mission redefinition (July 15, 2025)

Action: The Senate confirmed Edlow as USCIS Director 52–47 (Record Vote No. 390), after invoking cloture 50–46 (Record Vote No. 389) the same day. His nomination (PN26-15) had been placed on the Executive Calendar on June 12, 2025, with Questions for the Record responses dated May 21, 2025. Upon assuming office, Edlow stated USCIS would “return to its rightful place as a key partner in enforcing immigration laws,” and, in his Senate Judiciary questionnaire responses, argued that USCIS “must be an immigration enforcement agency” despite acknowledging the Homeland Security Act’s text does not use that description for USCIS specifically (distinguishing it from CBP and ICE).

Date: July 15, 2025 (confirmation); July 18, 2025 (USCIS announcement of start of service).

Evidence: U.S. Senate roll-call votes 389–390; USCIS press release; Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire responses.[1][2][3][4]

2. Policy Manual update: negative discretionary weight for “anti-American” and terrorist-affiliated activity (August 19, 2025)

Action: USCIS Policy Alert PA-2025-16 directed officers to assign “significant negative discretionary weight” in benefit adjudications where an applicant “has endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused the views of a terrorist organization,” reported as USCIS’s “anti-American activity” discretionary-factor policy.

Date: August 19, 2025.

Evidence: USCIS Policy Alert PA-2025-16; Ogletree Deakins client alert.[5][6]

3. Resumption of neighborhood investigations and tightened good-moral-character review for naturalization (August 2025; expanded August 2026)

Action: USCIS issued an August 15, 2025 memo revising its good-moral-character standard for naturalization, followed on August 22, 2025 by an announcement resuming “neighborhood investigations” — field visits to an applicant’s residence and employment vicinity covering at least the five years before filing. A year later, USCIS issued a further Policy Manual update (PA-2026-10, August 25, 2026) on investigations and examinations for naturalization eligibility, invoking Executive Order 14161’s vetting mandate.

Date: August 15 and 22, 2025; August 25, 2026.

Evidence: Immigrant Legal Resource Center naturalization alert; Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners analysis; USCIS Policy Alert PA-2026-10.[7][8][9]

4. USCIS special agents granted arrest and law-enforcement authority (September 2025)

Action: DHS and USCIS announced that newly designated “1811”-classified USCIS special agents would be authorized to make arrests, carry firearms, and execute search and arrest warrants, codified in a Federal Register final rule. Edlow said: “USCIS has always been an enforcement agency. By upholding the integrity of our immigration system, we enforce the laws of this nation. As Secretary Noem delegated lawful authorities to expand the agency’s law enforcement capabilities, this rule allows us to fulfill our critical mission. This historic moment will better address immigration crimes, hold those that perpetrate immigration fraud accountable, and act as a force multiplier for DHS and our federal law enforcement partners, including the Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

Date: Announced September 4, 2025; Federal Register publication September 5, 2025.

Evidence: USCIS press release; Federal Register final rule 2025-16978; DHS press release.[10][11][12]

5. 2025 Naturalization Civics Test (effective September 2025)

Action: USCIS implemented a revised “2025 Naturalization Civics Test,” administered to applicants who file Form N-400 on or after October 20, 2025.

Date: Federal Register notice effective September 18, 2025; applied to filings from October 20, 2025.

Evidence: Federal Register notice 2025-18050; Center for Immigration Studies analysis.[13][14]

6. H-1B restrictions: $100,000 fee, wage-weighted lottery, and expanded social-media vetting (September 2025 – February 2026)

Action: President Trump’s Proclamation 10973 restricted entry for H-1B specialty-occupation workers abroad “not accompanied by a $100,000 payment,” effective September 21, 2025, with a national-interest exception reserved to the DHS Secretary’s discretion. DHS followed with a final rule replacing random H-1B cap selection with a wage-level-weighted lottery effective February 27, 2026 (Wage Level IV petitions receive four lottery entries, Level I one). The State Department separately extended its “online presence review” — the social-media vetting already applied to F, M and J visa applicants — to H-1B and H-4 applicants effective December 15, 2025.

Date: September 19–21, 2025 (fee proclamation); December 29, 2025 (weighted-lottery rule, effective February 27, 2026); December 15, 2025 (social-media vetting).

Evidence: Presidential Proclamation 10973; Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete client alert; Mintz client alert.[15][16][17]

7. Post-shooting adjudication freeze and country-based benefit holds, and the litigation it produced (November 2025 – present)

Action: After the November 26, 2025 shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members in Washington, D.C., USCIS paused all asylum decisions nationwide beginning November 28, 2025. Edlow told CBS News: “USCIS has halted all asylum decisions until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible. The safety of the American people always comes first,” describing a “full scale, rigorous reexamination” of green-card cases for nationals of the 19 countries named in the administration’s June 2025 travel-ban proclamation. USCIS formalized the freeze in a sequence of Policy Manual memoranda: PM-602-0192 (December 2, 2025) held asylum decisions and a list of benefit applications for nationals of those 19 countries and ordered a “comprehensive re-review” of benefits already granted to their nationals who entered on or after January 20, 2021; PM-602-0193 (December 19, 2025) held Diversity Visa adjustment-of-status applications; and PM-602-0194 (January 1, 2026) extended the hold to 39 countries plus the Palestinian Authority after Proclamation 10998 (December 16, 2025) expanded the travel-ban list. On June 5, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island vacated PM-602-0192, PM-602-0194 and a related Policy Alert as unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act, finding the stated national-security rationale pretextual (Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, No. 1:26-cv-00132 (D.R.I.)); the government appealed June 12, 2026 (No. 26-1703, 1st Cir.). On August 24, 2026, after the same holds were apparently still being applied, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California certified a class and granted a preliminary injunction against them (Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Edlow, No. 3:26-cv-04850 (N.D. Cal.)); USCIS stated it “strongly disagrees with the Court’s order” but announced compliance “pending further litigation.” As of this writing the holds are enjoined and not being applied. The record does not establish why the same policy required a second injunction two months after being vacated; this profile states the sequence rather than resolving it.

Date: November 26, 2025 (shooting); November 28, 2025 (asylum pause); December 2, 2025 – January 1, 2026 (memo sequence); June 5–12, 2026 (Rhode Island vacatur and appeal); August 24–28, 2026 (California class injunction).

Evidence: CBS News; The Guardian; USCIS alerts; Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, No. 1:26-cv-00132 (D.R.I.); Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Edlow, No. 3:26-cv-04850 (N.D. Cal.).[18][19][20][21][22][23]

8. End of automatic EAD extensions and shortened validity (October 2025 – October 2026)

Action: DHS published an interim final rule on October 30, 2025 ending the automatic 540-day extension of expiring Employment Authorization Documents for pending renewal applications. USCIS separately announced in a December 4, 2025 Policy Alert that it was cutting the maximum validity period for certain EADs from five years to 18 months. On October 14, 2026, DHS made the end of the automatic extension permanent by final rule for the affected categories.

Date: October 30, 2025 (interim final rule); December 4, 2025 (validity-period alert); October 14, 2026 (final rule).

Evidence: AILA practice alert; USCIS release; Mintz client alert.[24][25][26]

9. Fee increases implementing the 2025 reconciliation law (October 2025 – September 2026)

Action: USCIS implemented a new immigration parole fee required by the 2025 reconciliation statute (H.R. 1 / Public Law 119-21) effective October 15, 2025, and issued Federal Register notices raising a set of H.R. 1-linked fees for inflation in both FY2026 (November 20, 2025) and FY2027 (September 30, 2026).

Date: October 15, 2025; November 20, 2025; September 30, 2026.

Evidence: USCIS Federal Register notices and newsroom alerts.[27]

10. Operation PARRIS: re-review of refugees admitted under the Biden administration (January 2026)

Action: USCIS launched “Operation PARRIS” (Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening), led by the agency’s Vetting Center, to reexamine refugee cases approved between January 21, 2021 and February 20, 2025, including new background checks, re-interviews and merit reviews. The initiative began with roughly 5,600 refugees in Minnesota without lawful-permanent-resident status.

Date: January 9, 2026.

Evidence: USCIS alert; AILA practice alerts.[28][29]

11. Restriction of post-graduation student work authorization (Optional Practical Training) (2025)

Action: Forbes immigration analyst Stuart Anderson reported that Edlow, implementing policies associated with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, expressed intent at his confirmation hearing to end or significantly restrict Optional Practical Training (OPT), the program allowing international students to work in the U.S. after graduation. No OPT-specific rulemaking had been finalized as of this writing.

Date: 2025 (confirmation-hearing testimony as reported).

Evidence: Forbes reporting, August 4, 2025.[30]

Pattern Analysis

Cross-References

Edlow’s record sits alongside the rest of DHS’s immigration-enforcement leadership: Secretary Kristi Noem (through March 2026) and her successor Markwayne Mullin set department-wide enforcement priorities that Edlow’s Policy Manual updates and memos implement at the benefits-adjudication level; Tom Homan coordinates enforcement operations with Edlow’s vetting and re-review programs; Stephen Miller is credited in reporting with shaping the OPT-restriction agenda Edlow has pursued. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott occupies the parallel enforcement-agency role at the border. See Kristi Noem — Political Accountability Profile, Markwayne Mullin — DHS Secretary, Tom Homan – Border Czar, Stephen Miller – Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.

Severity Assessment

Immediate harm: High — the post-shooting freeze held pending immigration benefits, including asylum decisions, for applicants from up to 39 countries for roughly six months before courts intervened, and Operation PARRIS placed thousands of previously admitted refugees back under review; two federal courts have found the underlying policies unlawful.

Democratic erosion: Moderate — the actions reflect a documented redefinition of a benefits-adjudication agency’s mission toward enforcement, implemented in several instances through policy memoranda rather than notice-and-comment rulemaking, which a federal court found exceeded statutory authority; no finding ties this to subversion of electoral or constitutional checks beyond the ordinary operation of APA judicial review, which functioned as intended when it vacated the policy.

Authoritarian marker: Not established as personal intent. The pattern — enforcement-first reinterpretation of a services agency, a discretionary-factor policy keyed to viewpoint, and continued application of benefit holds pending a second court order after the first vacated them — is the kind of pattern the DMA’s five-factor test looks for; on this record it does not clear the threshold, but it is close enough that evidence of deliberate defiance of the June 2026 vacatur would warrant revisiting the designation.

Accountability Status

Current status: Active (serving as USCIS Director).

Legal exposure: None identified as to Edlow personally; he is named in litigation in his official capacity only. USCIS’s central post-shooting policies (PM-602-0192 and PM-602-0194) have been vacated under the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. § 706) by the District of Rhode Island and separately enjoined by the Northern District of California pending appeal; no personal-capacity claim or damages claim against Edlow was located.

Congressional oversight: Senate Judiciary Committee and House Judiciary Committee (USCIS’s authorizing and confirmation jurisdiction); Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and House Homeland Security Committee (DHS operations and the special-agent law-enforcement authority); House and Senate Appropriations (USCIS fee structure and the reconciliation-law fee increases).

Public accountability: Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, No. 1:26-cv-00132 (D.R.I.), appeal pending as No. 26-1703 (1st Cir.); Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Edlow, No. 3:26-cv-04850 (N.D. Cal.), class certified, preliminary injunction in effect; Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project v. Executive Office for Immigration Review, No. 1:25-cv-03299 (D. Md.), challenging USCIS’s asylum-fee implementation; State of New York v. United States Department of Homeland Security, No. 1:26-cv-07978 (S.D.N.Y.), a 22-jurisdiction coalition challenging a 2026 public-charge rule, pending; ongoing coverage by AILA, CBS News, The Guardian and immigration-bar publications.

Open research leads

• Edlow’s OGE Form 278e financial disclosure was not located on oge.gov in this research pass; that is a gap in this profile’s research, not evidence either way about the filing.
• No 2026 congressional oversight or appropriations hearing testimony by Edlow, and no DHS Office of Inspector General or GAO report evaluating USCIS under his leadership, was located and none is asserted to exist.
• The gap between the June 2026 Rhode Island vacatur of PM-602-0192/PM-602-0194 and the August 2026 California class injunction against the same memo numbers is unexplained in the public record reviewed; it is not confirmed whether USCIS reissued the policy, continued applying it in a scope the Rhode Island ruling did not reach, or did not comply, and this profile does not speculate among those possibilities.
• A possible additional suit naming Edlow over SAVE-database or election-verification matters (a docket number referenced only in secondary coverage) could not be confirmed on CourtListener in this research pass and is not cited as fact.

Truth and Reconciliation Considerations

Investigation priorities

1. Obtain the internal USCIS and DHS deliberations behind PM-602-0192 through PM-602-0194 — who drafted the national-security rationale the Rhode Island court found pretextual, and what was known at the time about its evidentiary basis.
2. Determine why the same benefit holds required a second federal injunction in August 2026 after being vacated in June 2026 — whether USCIS continued applying them, reissued them, or applied them in a scope the first ruling did not reach.
3. Document the number of individuals whose asylum, green-card, or naturalization applications were delayed, denied, or referred to removal proceedings during the freeze, broken out by country of origin.
4. Establish whether the August 2025 “anti-American activity” discretionary-factor policy has been applied to deny any benefit, and on what evidentiary basis officers made that determination.
5. Determine the outcomes of Operation PARRIS’s refugee re-review, including how many of the roughly 5,600 Minnesota refugees initially reviewed had their status revoked, were referred for removal, or were cleared.

Testimony value

Compelled testimony from Edlow could clarify who authorized the national-security rationale a federal court found pretextual, whether he was informed that the same policy memos were still being applied after the June 2026 vacatur, and the basis on which USCIS officers apply the “anti-American activity” discretionary factor — none of which is established on the current public record.

Institutional reform

• Statutory reform: Require USCIS benefit-adjudication holds affecting more than a de minimis number of pending applications to go through notice-and-comment rulemaking rather than internal Policy Manual updates.
• Oversight mechanisms: Require DHS to report to Congress, within a fixed period, the evidentiary basis for any national-security rationale invoked to justify a blanket adjudication hold.
• Professional standards: Clarify in the Policy Manual the evidence required before an officer applies the “anti-American activity” discretionary factor, to prevent viewpoint-based denial decisions.
• Structural reform: Separate USCIS’s law-enforcement and arrest authority from its benefits-adjudication function organizationally, consistent with the Homeland Security Act’s original division between USCIS and ICE/CBP.

Cross-References

Skills: malice-evaluator, patriot-private-citizen-inclusion-gate, immigration-removal-defense-expert, public-records-research-specialist

Related profiles: kristi-noem-profile, markwayne-mullin-profile, tom-homan-profile, stephen-miller-profile, rodney-scott-profile

Topics: USCIS, asylum, H-1B, Optional Practical Training, naturalization, Operation PARRIS, Executive Order 14161, travel ban, Administrative Procedure Act

Sources

1. USCIS, “Joseph B. Edlow Begins Service as Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,” July 18, 2025. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/joseph-b-edlow-begins-service-as-director-of-us-citizenship-and-immigration-services
2. U.S. Senate, Roll Call Vote Menu, 119th Congress, 1st Session (Record Votes 389–390, July 15, 2025). https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_119_1.htm
3. C-SPAN, “Votes in the 119th Congress,” Senate Vote 390, July 15, 2025 (“Confirmed, 52-47”). https://www.c-span.org/congress/votes?114624%2FSenate%2F119-1%2F390=
4. Senate Judiciary Committee, Questions for the Record responses, Joseph Edlow, May 21, 2025. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2025-05-21_qfrresponses_edlow.pdf
5. USCIS, Policy Alert PA-2025-16, “Negative Discretionary Factors,” August 19, 2025. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20250819-DiscretionaryFactors.pdf
6. Ogletree Deakins, “USCIS Updates Policy Manual: New Discretionary Factors Focusing on ‘Anti-American’ Activity,” August 19, 2025. https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/uscis-updates-policy-manual-new-discretionary-factors-focusing-on-anti-american-activity
7. Immigrant Legal Resource Center, “Naturalization Alert: Memos on Good Moral Character (GMC) and Neighborhood Visits,” 2025. https://www.ilrc.org/resources/naturalization-alert-memos-good-moral-character-gmc-and-neighborhood-visits
8. Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners, “Neighborhood Snooping: USCIS’s New Roadblock to Citizenship,” September 2025. https://blog.cyrusmehta.com/2025/09/neighborhood-snooping-usciss-new-roadblock-to-citizenship.html
9. USCIS, Policy Alert PA-2026-10, “Investigations and Examinations for Naturalization Eligibility,” August 25, 2026. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20260825-InvestigationsForNatzEligibility.pdf
10. USCIS, “USCIS to Add Special Agents with New Law Enforcement Authorities,” September 4, 2025. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-to-add-special-agents-with-new-law-enforcement-authorities
11. Federal Register, “Codification of Certain U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Law Enforcement Authorities,” Document 2025-16978, September 5, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/05/2025-16978/codification-of-certain-us-citizenship-and-immigration-services-law-enforcement-authorities
12. Department of Homeland Security, “New Era Dawns for USCIS as Special Agents Now Meet the Authority to Support Immigration Enforcement,” September 4, 2025. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/09/04/new-era-dawns-uscis-special-agents-now-meet-authority-support-immigration
13. Federal Register, “Notice of Implementation of 2025 Naturalization Civics Test,” Document 2025-18050, September 18, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/18/2025-18050/notice-of-implementation-of-2025-naturalization-civics-test
14. Center for Immigration Studies (Elizabeth Jacobs), “USCIS Updates the Naturalization Civics Test — Again,” October 2, 2025. https://cis.org/Jacobs/USCIS-Updates-Naturalization-Civics-Test-Again
15. The American Presidency Project, “Proclamation 10973—Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers,” September 19, 2025. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-10973-restriction-entry-certain-nonimmigrant-workers
16. Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete LLP, “H-1B Updates: Weighted Lottery, H-1B Fee, Entry Restrictions, Social Media Screening, Travel Restrictions,” December 2025. https://www.constangy.com/newsroom/newsletters/h-1-b-updates-weighted-lottery-h-1b-fee-entry-restrictions-social-media-screening-travel-restrictions
17. Mintz, “Summary of Immigration Restrictions Following Shooting of Two National Guard Members,” December 12, 2025. https://www.mintz.com/insights-center/viewpoints/2806/2025-12-12-summary-immigration-restrictions-following-shooting-two
18. CBS News (Camilo Montoya-Galvez), “Officials instructed to pause all asylum decisions in wake of National Guard shooting,” November 28–29, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-guard-shooting-dc-us-asylum-decisions-pause
19. The Guardian, “US halts all asylum decisions after national guard shooting,” November 29, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/29/us-halts-all-asylum-decisions-after-national-guard-shooting
20. USCIS, “Update on USCIS’ Strengthened Screening and Vetting,” March 30, 2026. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/update-on-uscis-strengthened-screening-and-vetting
21. USCIS, “Recent Court Order on Hold Policies,” August 28, 2026. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/recent-court-order-on-hold-policies
22. Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, No. 1:26-cv-00132 (D.R.I., filed March 5, 2026; judgment June 11, 2026); appeal docketed as No. 26-1703 (1st Cir., June 12, 2026). CourtListener dockets 72369535 and 73477958. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72369535/dorcas-international-institute-of-rhode-island-v-united-states-citizenship/
23. Red Eagle Law, L.C. v. Edlow, No. 3:26-cv-04850 (N.D. Cal., filed May 21, 2026; class certified and preliminary injunction granted August 24, 2026). CourtListener docket 73380879. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73380879/red-eagle-law-lc-v-edlow/
24. American Immigration Lawyers Association, “USCIS IFR Removing Automatic Extension of Employment Authorization Documents,” AILA Doc. No. 25102961, October 30, 2025. https://www.aila.org/library/dhs-ifr-on-removal-of-the-automatic-extension-of-employment-authorization-documents
25. USCIS, “Interim Final Rule Published Ending the Practice of Automatically Extending Certain EADs,” October 30, 2025. https://www.uscis.gov/save/current-user-agencies/news-alerts/interim-final-rule-published-ending-the-practice-of-automatically-extending-certain-eads
26. Mintz (Courtney D’Entremont), “USCIS Final Rule Ends 540-Day Automatic EAD Extension for Key Categories,” October 14, 2026. https://www.mintz.com/insights-center/viewpoints/2806/2026-10-15-uscis-final-rule-ends-540-day-automatic-ead-extension
27. USCIS, Newsroom Alerts index (parole-fee implementation, October 15, 2025; FY2026 inflation increase, November 20, 2025; FY2027 inflation increase, September 30, 2026). https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts
28. USCIS, “Update on USCIS’ Strengthened Screening and Vetting” (names “Operation PARRIS”), March 30, 2026. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/update-on-uscis-strengthened-screening-and-vetting
29. American Immigration Lawyers Association, “USCIS Announces Launch of Refugee Re-Examination Initiative in Minnesota,” AILA Doc. No. 26010901, January 9, 2026; “Practice Alert: USCIS to Review Approvals and Immediately Pause LPR Applications for Refugees Admitted 1/21/21–2/20/25,” AILA Doc. No. 25112510. https://www.aila.org/library/featured-issue-sweeping-immigration-restrictions-in-the-aftermath-of-national-guard-shooting
30. Forbes (Stuart Anderson), “New Immigration Service Director May Pursue An Anti-Immigration Agenda,” August 4, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/08/04/new-immigration-service-director-may-pursue-an-anti-immigration-agenda/
31. USCIS, “Making America Safe Again: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services End-of-Year Review.” https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/making-america-safe-again-us-citizenship-and-immigration-services-end-of-year-review-demonstrates
32. State of New York v. United States Department of Homeland Security, No. 1:26-cv-07978 (S.D.N.Y., filed September 14, 2026). CourtListener docket 74784748. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74784748/state-of-new-york-v-us-department-of-homeland-security/
33. Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project v. Executive Office for Immigration Review, No. 1:25-cv-03299 (D. Md., filed October 3, 2025). CourtListener docket 71544005. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71544005/asylum-seeker-advocacy-project-v-executive-office-for-immigration-review/