DHS Strengthens Integrity in Nation’s Immigration System, Returns to Commonsense Legal Immigration Levels

WASHINGTON - Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Director Joseph Edlow, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has taken critical steps to restore sanity and integrity to our immigration system. Since Jan. 20, 2025, USCIS has closed loopholes and implemented critically needed changes to better protect American communities and workers.

"The distinction between legal and illegal immigration becomes meaningless when both can destroy a country at its foundation, "said USCIS Spokesman Matthew Tragesser. "Unchecked mass migration floods the American labor market, depressing wages and taking jobs away from hardworking Americans, while straining healthcare, education, and housing systems. The Trump administration continues to execute policies to ensure legal immigration advances American interests first and only the most deserving attain the privilege of U.S. citizenship."

USCIS is ending exploitation through categorical parole and the abuse of Temporary Protected Status. USCIS is returning to a faithful application of the law by ensuring the grant of parole and Temporary Protected Status are as Congress intended. TPS is now truly temporary, and USCIS terminated categorical parole programs like the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan parole program. We now consider parole requests strictly on a case-by-case basis.

Secretary Noem ended TPS for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela (2023 extension and 2021 designation), Syria, and South Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of aliens without authorization to remain in the country have been encouraged to use the U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP Home app to depart from the United States.

USCIS is implementing rigorous screening and vetting protocols and actively assisting ICE and other law enforcement partners to enforce immigration law and protect public safety. Since Jan. 20, 2025, USCIS has referred almost 3,200 individuals with orders of removal, active wants/warrants and other criminal indicators to ICE and other law enforcement entities, resulting in the apprehension of almost 2,000 criminal and illegal aliens at USCIS facilities since Jan. 20, 2025. In addition, since Jan. 20, 2025, USCIS has made 13,225 referrals to ICE for fraud, public safety and national security concerns, including 320 for confirmed or suspected Foreign Terrorist Organization gang members. Press releases highlighting USCIS involvement in arrests and convictions can be found in the USCIS Newsroom.

USCIS spearheaded the largest fraud investigation in agency history, Operation Twin Shield, a targeted enforcement operation in the Minneapolis area that uncovered marriage fraud, abuse of H-1B and student visas, and an alien with terrorist ties in September. Also in September, USCIS teamed with the Department of Justice, the FBI, and agencies across DHS to help take down a multi-million-dollar asylum fraud, human trafficking, and money laundering conspiracy.

USCIS is reviewing aliens' use of social media and other statements for anti-American ideologies to determine whether an alien endorses, espouses, promotes, or supports anti-American activity and considering it as a negative factor in any USCIS discretionary analysis when adjudicating immigration benefit requests. In FY25, USCIS completed 12,502 individual social media checks.

USCIS is recruiting Homeland Defenders and implementing new law enforcement authorities to restore integrity to the immigration system. USCIS initiated a largescale hiring campaign on Sept. 30, and has received nearly 35,000 applications-the most for any position in agency history. These dedicated patriots will execute the agency's critical mission to administer the nation's lawful immigration system while safeguarding the country from fraud and national security or public safety threats. USCIS also received law enforcement authorities delegated from the Secretary of Homeland Security. With these new authorities, USCIS special agents will be further empowered to investigate, arrest, and present for prosecution those who violate America's immigration laws under a final rule that published in September 2025.

USCIS is restoring integrity in the naturalization process by ensuring that only those who truly deserve it are granted the most sacred status we can bestow, that of United States citizen. USCIS is committed to fully vetting every alien and making the process one that the American people are confident in. We launched a revised civics test with more questions in October to ensure that naturalization applicants have a full understanding of American history and government before they can become U.S. citizens. USCIS also refocused the way we consider the good moral character of potential citizens, looking for positive contributions to our communities rather than merely the absence of bad behavior. We restored the practice of conducting neighborhood investigations of potential new citizens to verify their claims and ensure we get a full picture of their character.

USCIS has returned to a commonsense policy for issuing Notices to Appear (NTA), and since February 2025 has issued more than 172,000 NTAs to restore integrity and ensure the security of our nation's immigration system. The agency is committed to using its NTA authorities against removable aliens and will no longer exempt specific classes or categories from potential enforcement.

DHS announced an interim final rule ending the practice of automatically extending employment authorization documents for aliens filing renewal applications in certain employment authorization categories. With this rule, DHS prioritizes the proper screening and vetting of aliens before extending the validity of their employment authorizations.

USCIS is helping to secure the Nation's electoral process with an overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) in partnership with the Social Security Administration to ensure a single, reliable source for verifying immigration status and U.S. citizenship nationwide. State and local authorities can now input full Social Security numbers or just the last four digits to help verify U.S. citizenship and prevent aliens from voting in American elections. We also eliminated fees for participating state, local, territorial, and tribal government users; streamlined mass alien status checks; and integrated criminal records, immigration timelines, and addresses into results. Since making these changes, SAVE has processed more than 46 million voter verification queries.

USCIS is ensuring aliens do not become a burden on the government and issued a policy memo affirming that USCIS officers can once again be fully empowered to exercise their authority to exclude any alien who is likely at any time to become a public charge. USCIS is committed to the core principle of U.S. immigration law after years of neglect. The guidance reminds aliens that they have the burden of proof in demonstrating that they are not likely at any time to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.

USCIS is doing its part to protect American workers by implementing the President's Proclamation, Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers, an important initial step to reform the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program. Under the Proclamation, as of Sept. 21, H-1B petitions must be accompanied by an additional $100,000 payment as a condition of eligibility.

For more information on USCIS and its programs, please visit uscis.gov or follow us on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn.