Week of November 19–25, 2025

The Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule that would rescind the 2022 public charge ground of inadmissibility regulations, which govern when an immigrant can be denied a green card or a visa because officers judge that the person is likely to become primarily dependent on government support.

DHS argues the 2022 rule is unduly restrictive of its own officers, saying it limited them to a short list of factors and a narrow set of countable benefits. The department proposes moving away from the bright-line primary dependence standard and returning to a broader totality-of-circumstances judgment, with new policy guidance to follow after the regulations are removed. The proposal also addresses the breach and cancellation of public charge bonds.

Written comments were due by December 19, 2025.

Source: Federal Register

The Associated Press published an investigation into a tactic now common in immigration courts: government lawyers move to dismiss a pending case, a judge agrees, and the immigrant becomes eligible for expedited removal and is arrested by plainclothes agents in the hallway outside.

AP reporters observed proceedings in 21 cities, reviewed internal records and interviewed judges, clerks and lawyers at the Justice and Homeland Security departments. In one New York hearing, a government lawyer texted an ICE agent waiting in the corridor before moving to dismiss a Cuban man's asylum claim; he was detained moments later as he left the courtroom.

The report cited an AP-NORC survey this month finding that about 57% of adults disapprove of the president's handling of immigration.

Source: AP News

Speaking at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center, President Trump again defended visas for high-skilled foreign workers, saying Americans do not yet have the expertise to fill certain manufacturing jobs. He pointed to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's chip plants in Arizona, saying the company will bring in thousands of workers and that he will welcome them.

"I love my conservative friends. I love MAGA," Trump said. "But this is MAGA, and those people are going to teach our people how to make computer chips." He acknowledged the political cost, adding that his poll numbers had gone down as a result.

The remarks deepened a running argument with immigration hardliners in his party over the H-1B program, which he reignited earlier in the month in a Fox News interview.

Source: Politico

Arrests in the federal immigration operation across North Carolina, which the government has named Operation Charlotte's Web, topped 250, about double the figure Homeland Security officials had announced earlier in the week. Federal officials released few details about who was arrested or where agents would go next.

Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell said on X that Border Patrol enforcement appeared to have been suspended in the city; DHS did not announce any change. Roughly 100 people protested outside a Charlotte Home Depot where agents had been seen repeatedly.

The arrests have emptied immigrant neighborhoods: school attendance dropped and shops and restaurants closed. Nationally, detention counts have reached record highs above 60,000, with more than 560 immigration arrests in Portland, Oregon, in October alone.

Source: AP News

An Associated Press investigation found that the U.S. Border Patrol runs a secretive predictive intelligence program that monitors millions of American drivers nationwide. A network of cameras records license plate data, and an algorithm flags vehicles as suspicious based on where they started, where they were going and the route taken.

Federal agents then pass those flags to local police, who pull drivers over for minor infractions such as speeding, a failure to signal or a dangling air freshener, before questioning and searching them. Drivers are not told why they were stopped. Some have been arrested, including U.S. citizens.

The system draws on plate readers run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies and federally funded local programs, extending Border Patrol surveillance far into the interior of the country.

Source: AP News

At a four-hour hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said the government's case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia may rest on a document that does not exist. In October 2019, Baltimore Immigration Judge David Jones granted Abrego Garcia protection from being sent to El Salvador but, according to the record before Xinis, never entered a formal order of removal.

"There is no order of removal in the docket, in the record," Xinis said. "You have to have the order."

The point matters because immigration judges normally specify a destination country. The administration is seeking to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia, a country he has no ties to; his lawyers want him sent to Costa Rica or allowed to stay. He was illegally deported to a Salvadoran prison in March and returned under court order.

Source: Politico

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services canceled naturalization ceremonies across several New York counties, telling applicants they would be rescheduled. The agency said that after reviewing the jurisdiction of certain New York county courts under the Immigration and Nationality Act, it determined those courts do not meet the statutory requirements to conduct naturalization ceremonies.

USCIS said it will transition from judicial ceremonies, presided over by a judge in a courthouse, to administrative ones held in its own regional offices. Onondaga County Clerk Emily Bersani confirmed that a ceremony planned for Wednesday was canceled without explanation, and said she had no information about events scheduled for 2026.

Applicants remain in the naturalization process, but the change strips county courts of a ceremonial role many have held for decades.

Source: The Hill

Homeland Security announced the fiscal year 2026 amounts for two immigration enforcement fees created by the reconciliation law known as HR-1, Public Law 119-21. Both were set at $5,130 after the inflation adjustment the statute requires each year.

The first applies to people ordered removed in absentia under section 240(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act who are later arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The second applies to people apprehended between ports of entry after entering the country unlawfully.

DHS said it would begin assessing and collecting the new amounts on December 1, 2025.

Source: Federal Register

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a lengthy opinion setting out the findings behind her preliminary injunction limiting how federal agents use force during immigration operations in the Chicago area. Her order bars physical force and chemical agents such as tear gas and pepper balls unless necessary to prevent an immediate threat.

Drawing on body-worn camera footage and testimony, Ellis described agents repeatedly firing tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls and flash-bang grenades without warning or justification, including at protesters who were fleeing, at journalists and at praying clergy members. She wrote that agents laughed and joked while deploying munitions and made remarks at odds with the government's own accounts.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin dismissed the opinion, saying it did not change conditions on the ground.

Source: AP News

The administration announced it will revoke Temporary Protected Status for nearly 4,000 nationals of Burma, who received the protection after the country's 2021 military coup. DHS said Burma no longer meets the conditions for a designation, citing the end of its state of emergency, planned elections and ceasefire agreements. The termination notice takes effect 60 days after publication.

Axios counted terminations for nine countries so far, with moves underway against eight more; some take effect in late 2026. Carolyn Tran of Communities United for Status and Protection put the number of people stripped of TPS since January at at least 675,000.

Trump also said last week that Somali immigrants living in Minnesota would immediately lose their status.

Source: Axios

A November 21 memo directs a comprehensive review and re-interview of all refugees admitted to the United States between January 20, 2021, and February 20, 2025, a group of more than 200,000 people. Green card holders who arrived as refugees are included.

The memo cites a USCIS finding that the previous administration "potentially prioritized expediency, quantity, and admissions over quality interviews and detailed screening and vetting." Applicants found on re-review not to meet the refugee definition would have no right to appeal, and spouses, children and other family members admitted with them would lose their status as well.

Refugees are already vetted by multiple agencies through a process that usually takes years to complete before arrival.

Source: NBC News

Several recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals have been arrested this year, a departure from earlier practice under which people whose status was in question received a warning and a chance to contest it before detention.

Yaakub Vijandre, a mechanic in the Dallas area, was preparing for work in early October when federal agents surrounded his home and took him into custody, one pointing a weapon at him. The administration said it targeted Vijandre, a freelance videographer and pro-Palestinian activist, over his social media posts.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said people who claim DACA are "not automatically protected from deportations" and that the program "does not confer any form of legal status in this country." DACA has shielded hundreds of thousands of people brought to the country as children since 2012.

Source: NBC News