Week of May 20–26, 2026

Properly submitted H-1B registrations for the fiscal 2027 cap fell to 211,600 from 343,981 a year earlier, a drop of 38.5 percent, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said.

The agency said the decline shows that “the days of abusing the program with mass, low-wage registrations are over.” It also reported that 71.5 percent of those selected held a U.S. master's degree or higher, up from 57 percent the previous year.

The fall follows a $100,000 fee on new H-1B entries and tighter wage rules introduced by the administration, which says the changes root out systemic abuse. Employers and universities have said the measures shut out qualified workers, particularly foreign graduates of U.S. programs.

Source: Newsweek

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing whether undocumented immigrants have the same right as citizens and lawful residents to challenge their detention in federal court.

The case involves Ignacio Sosnava Rodriguez, Miguel Angel Gomez Alvarado and Alejandro Villegas Angel, three men stopped by police in Taylor, Texas, between November 2025 and February 2026 and turned over to ICE. They had lived in the country for 22, 15 and 14 years, had families and no criminal records, and were placed in deportation proceedings without a bond hearing. Federal judges later ordered them released, finding the detentions violated due process.

Courts and the federal government long treated the question as settled. The administration began arguing last summer that undocumented immigrants have no right to challenge their detention.

Source: The Texas Tribune

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a policy memorandum directing that people seeking permanent residence apply through consular processing abroad, with adjustment of status inside the United States granted only in extraordinary circumstances. Officers are told to weigh each case individually.

“An alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances,” said agency spokesman Zach Kahler. He said nonimmigrants such as students, temporary workers and tourists come for a specific purpose and are expected to leave.

The agency said routing the cases to the State Department frees USCIS resources for naturalization and for visas for victims of violent crime and trafficking. Adjusting status domestically has been routine for decades.

Source: USCIS

San Francisco's main immigration court closed on May 1, leaving the city the first major metropolitan area without a primary immigration court. It had 21 judges when the president took office last year and two when it shut. The rest were fired, retired or resigned.

Most of its 117,000 cases have moved to a courthouse in Concord, about 30 miles away, which opened two years ago to relieve the San Francisco backlog. Concord had 11 judges at the start of 2025 and now has five, with a caseload of 60,000 before the transfer.

Nearly 100 immigration judges have been fired nationally and hundreds of military lawyers approved to replace them. The national backlog stands at 3.8 million asylum cases.

Source: AP News

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit declined to review a January district court decision that cleared the way for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia graduate arrested by ICE in March 2025. His lawyers said they will appeal to the Supreme Court.

The question was procedural: Khalil's attorneys argued his constitutional claims belong in federal district court, while Justice Department lawyers said they belong in immigration court, whose judges are hired by the attorney general. The court split, with five judges voting to hear the case and six against.

Khalil, an Algerian citizen and lawful permanent resident, was arrested after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his presence carried serious adverse foreign policy consequences.

Source: Gothamist

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said its new policy on green card applications will not require every H-1B worker to leave the country to apply.

“People who present applications that provide an economic benefit or otherwise are in the national interest will likely be able to continue on their current path,” spokesman Zach Kahler said, adding that others “may be asked to apply abroad depending on individualized circumstances.”

The memorandum issued days earlier makes consular processing abroad the default for people moving from temporary status to permanent residence, and treats domestic adjustment of status as exceptional. It applies to students, H-1B professionals, L-1 transferees and tourists. The agency says Congress never intended a temporary stay to serve as a first step toward a green card.

Source: Newsweek

A White House memorandum raises the annual refugee ceiling from 7,500 to 17,500, with all 10,000 additional places reserved for white South Africans.

The document, addressed to the secretaries of state, homeland security and health and human services, cites “an unforeseen emergency refugee situation” arising from what it calls increased incitement of racially motivated violence by the South African government and political leaders. It gives no further detail, and experts told PBS News there is no refugee or humanitarian crisis affecting the group.

The administration resettled 506 refugees in the first fiscal year of the term, nearly 70 percent of them white South Africans, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The refugee program was suspended on the president's first day back in office.

Source: PBS NewsHour

The Supreme Court sided with the administration in a suit brought by immigration judges over a policy restricting their public speeches, overturning a lower court ruling that had let the case proceed in federal court.

Immigration judges are Justice Department employees rather than members of the federal judiciary. They argued the restriction, adopted in the first Trump term and kept under President Biden, raises a First Amendment question for the courts. The administration said they must use the federal employee complaint system overseen by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The ruling rested on procedural grounds. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, criticized the Fourth Circuit for engaging with “political controversies of the day.” The judges' union said the case is far from over.

Source: PBS NewsHour

The Supreme Court threw out Florida's attempt to sue California and Washington over commercial driver's licenses issued to people the state says entered the country illegally.

Attorney General James Uthmeier filed the claim directly at the Supreme Court rather than in a lower court. The justices can hear disputes between states but rarely do. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, said he would have taken the case.

The suit followed a crash in Florida last year that killed three people, involving a truck driven by Harjinder Singh, who faces criminal charges. Florida alleged the two states' defiance of federal immigration law led them to flout safety rules, licensing drivers without proper training or the ability to read road signs.

Source: NBC News

The Department of Homeland Security directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to develop policies for taking enforcement action against immigration attorneys who help file fraudulent asylum claims.

The department's memo accuses immigration lawyers of asserting that virtually every person in the country illegally would be persecuted or tortured at home on account of a protected characteristic. It tasks ICE with drafting new fraud policies and pursuing cases against the attorneys involved.

The directive is the administration's latest measure aimed at the asylum system, through which people fleeing persecution can seek protection in the United States. It follows new asylum filing and annual fees and a rule tying work permits to fee payment.

Source: The Hill