Week of February 19–25, 2025

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stopped processing applications from people who entered the country through humanitarian parole programs and were seeking to move to a more permanent immigration status. The pause covers beneficiaries of Uniting for Ukraine, the parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, and family reunification parole.

A Department of Homeland Security official told VOA the suspension was pending additional vetting to identify fraud, public safety or national security concerns. The administration did not say what prompted the review, how long it would last, or whether applicants would need to file again.

About 530,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were admitted under the CHNV process, and roughly 350,000 American sponsors backed nearly 240,000 Ukrainians under Uniting for Ukraine. Parole allows people to live and work in the United States temporarily but does not by itself lead to permanent residence.

Source: VOA

President Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to identify and end federally funded programs that provide benefits to people in the country without legal status. The order says it will end all taxpayer-funded benefits for people in the country illegally but does not name the programs it covers.

People without legal status are already barred from most federal benefits, with limited exceptions for emergencies. All children remain entitled to free public education under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling. People granted parole, more than a million of whom were admitted under the Biden administration, can qualify for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program for a limited period.

The order also seeks to stop state and local governments from using federal money to support sanctuary policies. A similar attempt during Trump's first term ended when the Supreme Court dismissed the dispute.

Source: NPR

The Department of Homeland Security vacated a Biden administration decision to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, removing deportation protection and work authorization from roughly half a million people. Those affected could become eligible for removal by August.

DHS said in a news release that the TPS system had been exploited and abused, noting that Haiti has been designated since 2010 and that each extension allowed more Haitian nationals to qualify. The department said about 57,000 Haitians were eligible for the protection in 2011 and that the number had reached 520,694 by July of last year.

TPS gives holders legal authority to remain in the United States but no path to citizenship, and beneficiaries depend on the government renewing the designation. Haiti's migration director, Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, said 21 Haitians had been deported under the Trump administration so far, all of them already scheduled for removal under Biden.

Source: AP News

The National TPS Alliance and seven Venezuelan plaintiffs sued the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem in federal court in San Francisco, arguing that the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans was unlawful and motivated in part by racial animus. The suit asks the court to restore the 18-month extension granted by the Biden administration on January 17.

More than 350,000 Venezuelan TPS holders faced the loss of legal status and work authorization on April 2, with a further 257,000 affected by September. The extension the plaintiffs seek would cover 607,000 people.

The complaint cites Noem's description of Venezuelan TPS holders as "dirtbags" and disputes the government's claim that many beneficiaries belong to the Tren de Aragua gang. It was filed by the ACLU foundations of Northern and Southern California, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Source: Miami Herald

The Trump administration removed Caleb Vitello as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement about a month into the job, according to two former senior Department of Homeland Security officials and one current senior official.

The change followed complaints from border czar Tom Homan and President Trump that deportation numbers were not high enough. Homan had also objected to leaks from the agency that he said cut the number of arrests in some operations.

A current senior DHS official said Vitello would stay at ICE overseeing arrests, targeting and field operations, and that a replacement would be named soon. Vitello spent more than two decades at the agency and rose through its Enforcement and Removal Operations division. A serving ICE agent described him as popular with rank-and-file officers during his month in charge.

Source: NBC News

Immigration and Customs Enforcement restarted the 287(g) task force model, which trains and supervises state and local officers so they can challenge people about immigration status and arrest them during routine duties. The model was dropped in 2012 after a Justice Department investigation found widespread racial profiling in an Arizona task force.

Agencies in Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas signed agreements during the week, along with sheriffs in Douglas County, Nevada, and the Texas counties of Goliad and Smith. Florida's state highway patrol signed the first agreement of the new administration on February 17.

Border czar Tom Homan told a sheriffs' conference in Washington that training for deputies would be cut from four weeks to about one week and that Homeland Security would help defend agencies that get sued. Maricopa County, Arizona, paid $43 million in litigation fees before ICE ended its task force partnership there in 2009.

Source: Stateline

Republican lawmakers in more than 20 states filed bills this year targeting sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking service Plural. Some states that already ban such policies now propose to punish mayors, council members and other officials who violate the ban.

A Georgia bill that passed the state Senate would let people sue local governments, officials and employees over sanctuary policies. Its sponsor, Republican state Senator Blake Tillery, said the measure would give recourse to those aggrieved by local governments that do not abide by Georgia immigration law. State law already requires local police to help identify and detain immigrants in the country illegally or lose state funding and face misdemeanor charges.

Opponents said the threat of lawsuits could push police and sheriffs to hold immigrants longer than federal law allows.

Source: AP News

An internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo reviewed by Reuters directs agents to track down migrant children who entered the United States without a parent or guardian, extending the administration's deportation effort to unaccompanied minors. The memo sets out four phases, beginning with planning on January 27, and gives no start date for enforcement operations.

Agents are collecting data on the children and sorting them into three priority groups. The memo also moves to require fingerprinting and DNA testing of the adults who sponsor them. Children would be served with a notice to appear in immigration court, or deported if a removal order was already pending.

More than 600,000 immigrant children have crossed the border from Mexico without a parent or legal guardian since 2019. Tens of thousands have been ordered deported over the same period, including more than 31,000 for missing court hearings.

Source: Reuters

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang blocked the Trump administration from conducting immigration enforcement at places of worship used by the religious groups that sued over the policy. The order covers Quaker congregations in Philadelphia, Richmond, Maryland and New England, a Sikh temple in Sacramento, and a coalition of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship churches based in Georgia, rather than houses of worship nationwide.

The administration had removed Biden-era limits on enforcement at sensitive locations such as churches, schools and hospitals. In a 59-page opinion, Chuang wrote that the burden on the plaintiffs was already occurring and far from speculative, citing reports of lower attendance at congregations with large immigrant populations.

He found the policy likely violated the groups' First Amendment right to freedom of association and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, while noting that law enforcement must still be able to operate in or near places of worship when necessary.

Source: Politico

An internal Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by NPR sets out a plan to build immigration detention facilities on U.S. military bases, asking the Department of Defense for help holding immigrants without legal status.

The memo, sent by acting DHS executive secretary Juliana Blackwell, would use Fort Bliss near El Paso, Texas, to stage detainees for removal. The site would initially hold up to 1,000 people during a 60-day evaluation period and could eventually hold as many as 10,000 as a central hub for deportation operations.

Fort Bliss would serve as the model for as many as 10 further sites, including Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station in New York, Hill Air Force Base in Utah and Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami. ICE detention facilities were already at capacity, holding more than 41,000 people. A Defense Department official said the request remained in the planning stages.

Source: NPR

U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle blocked central parts of President Trump's executive order imposing an indefinite pause on refugee admissions, ruling from the bench after a hearing. He said the directive had crossed from permissible discretion into effective nullification of the framework Congress set for refugee admissions.

The case was brought by individual refugees, their family members and organizations that hold contracts to resettle refugees. Whitehead found that the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services had taken steps beyond the order itself without proper deliberation.

Resettlement groups said the pause left some approved refugees stranded overseas after they sold their belongings and had scheduled travel canceled. A Justice Department lawyer asked the judge to hold the ruling while the administration considered an appeal, and Whitehead said he would address that in his written order.

Source: Politico

President Trump said he planned to create a new route to permanent residence for wealthy foreigners, which he called a gold card, priced at $5 million. He raised the idea with reporters in the Oval Office and expanded on it at a Cabinet meeting the following day, saying the program would be rolled out in two weeks and that the proceeds could help pay down the deficit.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the card would effectively replace the EB-5 immigrant investor visa, which grants residency to foreigners who invest at least $1.05 million in a new job-creating business, or $800,000 in a rural area, a high-unemployment area or an infrastructure project. Lutnick said applicants for the new card would be vetted.

Trump said companies could buy the cards to keep top foreign graduates of U.S. universities from having to leave the country.

Source: NPR