Trump brings legal immigration to a screeching halt
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
President Trump promised the most deportations in decades to reverse illegal immigration. But the system for legal immigration is also buckling under his pressure.
- In just the last few weeks, the Trump administration has threatened to expand the travel ban list, paused all asylum decisions and signaled it will reopen cases from the Biden administration.
Why it matters: Any of these changes in isolation would put strain on the system. Doing them all at once could overwhelm it.
- "[Y]ou're effectively shutting down the legal immigration process," said Shev Dalal-Dheini, government relations director at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
- The policy changes announced after the National Guard shooting are expected to grow the caseload backlog at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the office that handles legal migration.
- Green cards and asylum claims will be re-reviewed, slowing down immigration processing for everyone, not just the targeted nationalities.
By the numbers: There are roughly 1.5 million pending asylum cases in the pipeline at USCIS, according to the latest posted data.
- Overall, USCIS has 11 million pending cases across every form of immigration benefit, from asylum and green cards to work visas and family-based applications.
Zoom in: The impact has been immediate for people from the 19 countries on the travel ban list, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Venezuela and Iran.
- The travel ban, when unveiled this summer, shut down travel for those passport holders to the U.S.
- But now that list is being used against immigrants already in the country who are applying for visas, work authorization or permanent legal status like a green card.
- Some have had their interviews with USCIS officers canceled. Others have been pulled out of citizenship ceremonies.
Between the lines: Reopening cases and increasing the vetting and screening process for new ones will slow down the agency's timeline to make decisions for everyone applying for immigration benefits.
- "[I]t's going to be very hard to predict processing times moving forward," said Anam Petit, an immigration attorney and recently fired federal immigration judge.
- Applicants rely on processing time estimates from USCIS to plan around when they'll receive a final decision.
- Some of those cases can be processed in as few as 15 days, according to the average processing time shared by USCIS. But others have waits as long as 45 months.
Zoom out: USCIS's latest policy changes follow a shift toward more immigration enforcement efforts in the name of national security and improved vetting.
- Director Joseph Edlow started his own hiring spree to bring on "Homeland Defenders," including officers who will make arrests.
- Edlow has also announced the creation of a new vetting center in Atlanta to review cases.
The bottom line: "The pause will allow for a comprehensive examination of all pending benefit requests for aliens from the designated high-risk countries. The safety of the American people always comes first," DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
- But Edlow said in a recent interview on One America News that there are "intelligence gaps" in the vetting process and that in some cases "it's going to be impossible."
