(2) immigration updates: September 29, 2026

Some days are just later than others.

Getting specific about deadlines . . .

When filing your taxes with the IRS, it’s pretty simple: if the deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, it gets moved to the next business day. If the deadline falls over Labor Day weekend, it is moved to Tuesday. This is generally how the regulations define a “day” for immigration filing purposes.

The general rule in immigration is to never keep a rule simple when you can always change it to “it depends.” Under this administration’s guiding principle of death-by-a-thousand-cuts, that becomes “how can we make things at least slightly harder for immigrants and their lawyers?”

An update to the policy manual limits the next-business-day rule to instances when a statute, regulation, or form instruction defines the filing period in a specific number of days. Effective October 23, 2026, a filing that requires the applicant to _still meet an eligibility condition _will be deemed untimely if filed on the business day following the deadline. The question to ask then “Is this a period counted in days, or a condition that must still be true when I file?” (Electronic filings are treated as received when submitted, thus don’t get the benefit of the next-business-day rule.)

For example, the time to file a motion or appeal on Form I-290B is a filing period measured in days. The ordinary deadline is 30 days after the decision, with three additional days when the decision was mailed. If the last day falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the filing period generally runs to the next business day.

An age limit works differently. If a benefit requires an applicant to be under 21 when filing, a 21st birthday on a Sunday does not preserve eligibility through Monday. The application would need to be filed while the applicant is still under 21.

One must now classify each deadline before relying on a weekend or holiday. Deadlines for filing a response or appeal continue to keep next-business-day treatment. Deadlines related to age/birthdays, expiration of status conditions, and things that would generally cut off eligibility now require a separate analysis and should probably be filed earlier.

. . . and birth tourism . . .

Between 2017 and 2020, a man on Long Island advertised to pregnant Turkish women on Facebook, charged them about $7,500 each, and housed them in properties he called “birth houses.” The scheme caused more than $1 million in fraudulent Medicaid payments. He was sentenced in 2022.

That case illustrates the commercial operations targeted by a new State Department visa restriction policy. The policy reaches people who knowingly engage in or facilitate travel to the United States for the primary purpose of securing U.S. citizenship for a child through birth here, including facilitators who have never traveled to the United States themselves.

The department invokes section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which concerns entry that the secretary of state has reasonable grounds to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. The announced targets include owners and managers of commercial networks, people who coach applicants to commit visa fraud, and medical providers who knowingly assist the travel and fraudulent use of Medicaid.

To this end DOS also launched an online portal for anonymous submission of specific instances of visa fraud generally, with specific examples including fabricated job offers, shell companies, and sham marriages.

. . . and trafficking proceeds.

The INA can make someone inadmissible for knowingly benefiting from a family member’s drug trafficking or trafficking in persons within the previous five years. The human-trafficking provision includes an exception for benefits received as a child.

That five-year limit is statutory. USCIS cannot extend it through a policy update to find someone inadmissible under those provisions for conduct outside the window. But an officer deciding whether to grant a discretionary benefit can consider a broader range of adverse facts.

A new USCIS policy alert says officers may consider benefits received from a trafficker even after the statutory five-year period has passed. It also addresses benefits received from a former spouse. In other words, conduct too old to trigger these particular inadmissibility grounds may still affect a discretionary decision.

The revised Policy Manual chapters explain the grounds, evidence, burdens of proof, and possible relief concerning drug trafficking, trafficking in persons, and money laundering.

enforcement

Third-country removals again reaches SCOTUS, this time addressing fear of persecution. ICE and other federal immigration agencies have shot 21 people so far in this Trump administration. And people are disappearing after their deportation orders.

Matthew Blaisdell, Esq.
Sunset Immigration PLLC
219 36th Street, Ste 511
Brooklyn, NY 11232
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