USA: New Immigration Service Director May Pursue An Anti-Immigration Agenda

Incorrect title – not “may” but “will:”

The new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will likely focus the agency on the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda. On July 15, 2025, Joseph Edlow began as USCIS director following a Senate confirmation vote along party lines. Edlow’s job will be to implement the policies of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. The agenda will include restricting asylum, directing adjudicators to tighten the approval process for immigration benefits applications and ending or controlling the ability of international students to work in the United States after graduating from U.S. universities.

USCIS Will Be An Immigration Enforcement Agency

In an opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation, Joseph Edlow said, “USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency.” That sends a message to adjudicators: Treat applications similarly to those during Donald Trump’s first term, when denials increased and Requests for Evidence skyrocketed at USCIS.

In a question submitted to Edlow, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), the committee’s ranking member, wrote, “The Homeland Security Act does not include language stating that USCIS is an immigration enforcement agency. . . . The statute makes clear that unlike ICE and Customs and Border Protection, USCIS’s primary mission is adjudication and processing of applications, not enforcement. Will you retract your inaccurate statement that ‘USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency?’” Edlow replied in writing, “No. The statement was not inaccurate as the adjudication of immigration benefits is inherently an act of enforcement of the immigration laws.”

Jon Wasden of Wasden Law said the USCIS transition from a “service” to an “enforcement” agency began under Barack Obama and intensified during Donald Trump’s first term. He notes that even during the Biden administration, USCIS continued to take funds and reallocate them to the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate within USCIS, which he believes violates the Homeland Security Act. Wasden is harsh in his assessment: “Both parties have created an environment where applicants are seen as the enemy, treated as criminals, and officers are above the law. I wish I could lay all this at the feet of Stephen Miller, but his Democrat predecessors share the blame.”

Still, USCIS differed significantly under Joe Biden compared to Trump’s first term. The Biden administration’s final rule on H-1B visas proved to be far more favorable for employers, universities and high-skilled foreign nationals than anything produced during the Trump years. Policy experts viewed the Trump administration’s interim final rule on H-1B visas, which a court blocked for violating the Administrative Procedure Act, as designed to prevent, or at least discourage, employers from using the H-1B category by narrowing eligibility and piling on requirements. A Department of Labor interim final rule would have priced many H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market by inflating the required salaries.

“Positive actions the Biden administration took on high-skilled immigration included taking steps to issue an ‘unprecedented’ number of employment-based green cards, increasing the validity of Employment Authorization Documents for up to five years, providing favorable guidance for O-1A visas and national interest waivers and making it easier for some employment-based green card applicants to stay if they have ‘compelling circumstances,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. “O-1A visa filings and requests for national interest waivers increased significantly after the new guidance.”

The NFAP analysis noted that the Trump administration carried out what judges found to be unlawful policies on H-1B visas for nearly four years. An H-1B is often the only practical way for a high-skilled foreign national, including an international student, to work long term in the United States. Denial rates for H-1B petitions for initial employment reached 24% in FY 2018 and 21% in FY 2019, compared to 6% in FY 2015. (H-1B petitions for “initial” employment are primarily for new employment, typically a case that would count against the H-1B annual limit.) Only lawsuits, court rulings and a legal settlement ended the policies.

Source: New Immigration Service Director May Pursue An Anti-Immigration Agenda