Week of February 26 – March 4, 2025

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a statement on Feb. 25 that everyone living in the United States without legal status must register with the federal government. The requirement applies to anyone 14 and older, who must give fingerprints and an address. Parents and guardians are responsible for registering children under 14. People who do not comply could face fines, imprisonment or both.

Officials said a form and a process would be announced soon, and the USCIS website told people to create an online account. The agency indicated that those who register would receive an identity document that anyone over 18 must carry at all times.

Federal law has required registration since the Alien Registration Act of 1940, with the current provisions drawn from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, but scholars say it has rarely been enforced. A program created after Sept. 11 registered noncitizen men from 25 countries, produced no terrorism convictions and placed more than 13,000 people in deportation proceedings before it was dissolved in 2016.

Source: AP News

President Donald Trump said on Feb. 25 that he intended to replace the EB-5 immigrant investor visa, which requires a minimum investment of $800,000, with a $5 million "gold card" offering residence and a route to citizenship. He said details would be released within two weeks.

Immigration and wealth advisers told Reuters that the price, together with U.S. taxation of worldwide income, would deter most buyers. A Hong Kong consultant said applicant numbers would drop significantly if the gold card replaced EB-5, which has been used mainly by clients from Hong Kong and mainland China. A Seoul immigration lawyer noted that Congress created EB-5 in 1990 and that ending it would require congressional action.

Source: Reuters

The Trump administration removed five judges from immigration courts in Houston, Laredo and El Paso, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union that represents them. Three were associate chief judges who managed courts and carried out policy. The union said the five were among 28 employees removed from the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review in recent weeks.

About 700 immigration judges work in 71 courts nationwide, and each typically hears 500 to 700 cases a year. The pending caseload reached nearly 4 million by the end of the last fiscal year. The Executive Office for Immigration Review declined to comment on personnel matters.

Analysts told the Tribune that the removals would deepen delays and push the administration further toward expedited removal, which allows deportation without a hearing before a judge.

Source: The Texas Tribune

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it would reopen Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, a 1,000-bed site that last held detainees in 2017. The agency described it as the first new detention center to open in President Donald Trump's second term. Acting director Caleb Vitello said its location near Newark Liberty International Airport would speed the processing of people in custody.

ICE is also adding beds at privately owned facilities elsewhere. Limited capacity has been a constraint on the administration's enforcement plans, with more than 41,000 people in ICE custody according to the most recent Homeland Security figures.

Amol Sinha, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey, said the contract was among the largest immigration detention agreements the state has seen and would add to fear among immigrant residents.

Source: NPR

Judge Edmond Chang, who chairs the U.S. Judicial Conference's Committee on Criminal Law, told federal judges in a memo that the U.S. Marshals Service's new immigration authority raises questions the judiciary needs answered. The Department of Homeland Security authorized Justice Department agencies, including the marshals, to act as immigration officers on Jan. 22.

The Marshals Service told judges the authority lets it hold, detain and arrest immigrants who are in prison or jail or were recently released. Chang wrote that in discussions the agency would not rule out immigration arrests inside courthouses, or arrests of defendants already released on bail when they return for a hearing. That could include lawful permanent residents, more than 1,300 of whom were granted bail over the previous two years.

Chang said the judiciary still lacks clarity on how facilities used to hold pretrial detainees would be used under the policy.

Source: Reuters

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed Executive Order 47, directing the Virginia State Police and the Department of Corrections to enter Section 287(g) agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The state police will use the task force model, creating a group of federally deputized troopers to help identify and apprehend immigrants the state regards as a risk to public safety.

The order also asks localities to cooperate fully with ICE removal and enforcement work, and directs the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security to request certification of cooperation from every sheriff or other official running a local or regional jail.

Section 287(g) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act allows ICE to deputize state and local officers to enforce immigration law.

Source: 13News Now

U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle issued a written opinion explaining the preliminary injunction he granted from the bench on Feb. 25 against the executive order titled "Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program." He wrote that the executive branch's discretion to suspend refugee admissions is not boundless, and that the order, which has no end date, effectively nullified the framework Congress created in the Refugee Act of 1980.

The plaintiffs were nine refugees along with Church World Service, Lutheran Community Services Northwest and HIAS. Whitehead found they were likely to succeed on their claim that the order exceeded statutory and constitutional limits, and that the funding suspension had left agency staff laid off or furloughed and thousands of refugees stranded abroad.

The nationwide injunction bars officials from enforcing the order, halting refugee processing or suspending funds. Plaintiffs sought an emergency conference after the State Department sent resettlement agencies termination notices.

Source: Courthouse News

Amador County Sheriff Gary Redman told CalMatters he plans to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement when his deputies arrest someone who is in the country illegally. California's 2017 sanctuary law bars that, allowing notification only after a person has been convicted and served a sentence or is otherwise about to be released from custody.

Redman said a federal statute against harboring people in the country illegally requires him to act, a theory that has not been tested in court. He said he would keep following the rest of the state law.

The attorney general's office said it is monitoring compliance and noted that the Ninth Circuit upheld the law after the first Trump administration sued California in 2018. Between 2018 and 2023, California jails transferred 4,192 people to immigration authorities.

Source: CalMatters

A group of U.S. citizens and immigrants sued the Trump administration late on Feb. 28, seeking to restore humanitarian parole programs that admitted 875,000 people from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who had sponsors in the United States. The Justice Action Center and Human Rights First filed the case in federal court in Massachusetts.

The plaintiffs include eight immigrants who entered legally before the administration ended what it called the broad abuse of parole. They may stay until their parole expires, but the government stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other relief. None are identified by their real names because they fear deportation.

Parole authority dates to 1952 and has been used by presidents of both parties to admit people who cannot use standard immigration routes. Trump ordered an end to categorical parole programs on the day he returned to office.

Source: Bangor Daily News

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 1 designating English as the official language of the United States, the first such designation in the country's history. Most states have already named English their official language.

The order says the designation will empower new citizens and help them assimilate, and that speaking English helps newcomers take part in their communities. People seeking naturalization are already required to show they can read, write and speak basic English.

Census Bureau data show that residents of the United States communicate in more than 350 languages, and that more than three quarters of Americans speak only English at home.

Source: NBC News

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published a notice on March 3 proposing a new information collection that would add a common set of 24 data elements to immigration benefit forms wherever the agency does not already gather them. USCIS said the collection is required by Executive Order 14161, "Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats," signed on Jan. 20.

The elements include name, aliases, sex, date and place of birth, countries of citizenship and residence, passport or national identity document details, telephone numbers used in the past five years, email addresses used in the past ten years, U.S. and foreign addresses, and the names, birth dates, birthplaces, residences and telephone numbers of parents, spouses, siblings and children.

The agency said the data supports identity verification and national security screening. Comments are open for 60 days, until May 2, 2025.

Source: Federal Register

USCIS updated at least nine immigration forms on March 3 and made the new editions effective immediately, with version dates backdated to Jan. 20. The agency usually allows a grace period of a few weeks to a couple of months during which older editions are still accepted.

The forms include those used to apply for permanent residence and for citizenship. Among the changes are the removal of the option to select "Another Gender Identity" alongside male and female, and a return to the word "alien" in place of "noncitizen" or "foreign national."

Immigration attorneys told Newsweek that filings already in the mail were left in doubt, with some trying to halt FedEx deliveries and resend documents for signature. A USCIS spokesperson said the agency may reject a form if any of its pages come from a different edition.

Source: Newsweek