US Citizenship and Immigration Services Will Hire Armed Special Agents
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is planning to recruit and train special agents who will be able to make arrests, carry firearms, and execute warrants against people who have allegedly violated immigration laws.
A final rule published today in the federal register authorizes the director of USCIS to conduct “law enforcement activities to enforce civil and criminal violations of immigration laws within the jurisdiction of USCIS.” The rule is effective on October 6.
USCIS, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), screens and processes green card and citizenship applications. The agency also administers a number of programs, including those for people who seek to work in the United States, as well as humanitarian programs for victims of certain crimes and people who have been displaced by catastrophes in their home country, among others.
“This historic moment will better address immigration crimes, hold those that perpetrate immigration fraud accountable, and act as a force multiplier for DHS and our federal law enforcement partners, including the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow said in a press release. (During his Senate confirmation hearing, Edlow, a former visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025, told lawmakers that “USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency.”)
The rule states that: “The law enforcement authorities delegated to the Director of USCIS include, but are not limited to, the authority to investigate alleged civil and criminal violations of the immigration laws within the jurisdiction of USCIS, issue and execute both search and arrest warrants, detain and remove aliens, and make recommendations for prosecutions or other appropriate action when deemed advisable.”
Previously, these duties were “only delegated to ICE and CBP regarding the enforcement of immigration laws.”
As per the new rule, the director of USCIS “will grant individuals or a class of individuals the authority to use non-deadly force, deadly force (in situations where the designated immigration officer or other persons are in danger), and initiate a vehicular pursuit to apprehend fleeing suspects who are attempting to avoid apprehension.”
DHS did not provide public notice or hold a public comment period for the rule, as required by the Administrative Procedure Act, claiming that the “normal notice and comment procedures do not apply” as the changes “do nothing more than organize internal DHS operations.” The rule, however, fundamentally changes USCIS’s role in the immigration system.
“USCIS should be fairly adjudicating people’s applications for services,” Doug Rand, a former USCIS senior official during the Biden administration, told NBC News. “It should not be scaring people from applying for services in the first place.”
DHS has made a number of changes to limit people’s pathways to live, study, and work in the United States. In August, DHS proposed a rule to limit the amount of time that foreign-born reporters, academics, students, physicians, and others can stay in the United States. Those who wish to stay longer than that time frame would have to apply to USCIS, “therefore requiring regular assessments by DHS,” according to DHS’s press release.
If adopted, the rule, DHS said, “will limit the amount of time that foreign students, professors, physicians, and other visa holders are allowed to remain in the United States without additional screening and vetting.”
Also last month, USCIS announced that it will consider “any involvement in anti-American or terrorist organizations” and “evidence of antisemitic activity” when reviewing noncitizens’ applications to live and work in the United States. The Trump administration has used baseless accusations of antisemitism to attempt to deport foreign-born pro-Palestine student activists, including Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who has a green card.
The Trump administration has also been targeting people who show up at courthouses or USCIS offices for immigration appointments. The American Immigration Lawyers Association has reported that ICE has been arresting people when they come to USCIS for biometrics appointments, interviews for I-130 petitions (forms filed by U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to sponsor their family members), and interviews for green card applications.
“[T]hese arrests are preventing eligible individuals from being approved for lawful status,” the organization wrote in a policy brief published in August.
“The ICE arrests taking place at USCIS field offices across the country are inefficient, undermine the legal immigration process, and unnecessarily separate families,” the brief continues. “Current ICE actions not only undermine trust in the system but also punish those who are actively trying to comply with the law.”