immigration updates: June 24, 2025

How following the rules will get you arrested, what to scrub from your social media, and some more enforcement (with a lot of parenthetical explainers).

Apologies for typos; I had to skip the proofreading today.

the (immigration) cops have taken over the (immigration) courts (and everything else)

We’ve discussed the Administration’s goal of arresting 3,000 foreign nationals a day, and the practice of arresting individuals who attend their court appointments and who are (largely) applying for status. It appears there is also an even less formal, though unsurprising, policy of pressuring immigration judges to assist with this practice.

Immigration courts, as courts more generally, are intended to serve as neutral arbiters. They generally apply the relevant laws to the particular facts of a case before them, both procedurally and substantively. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), specifically, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plays the role of prosecutor, submitting charges that a person has violated the immigration laws. The foreign national plays the role of a defendant (in immigration court, they are referred to as the “respondent”). The respondent may or may not hire a lawyer, but they are not entitled to one as they would be in criminal proceedings.

The immigration judge will review the charges, and if the respondent cannot overcome them, the judge will make a finding that the charges have been established. While at times this is a straightforward matter, the immigration laws can also be incredibly complicated, and the DHS is not always able to sustain their burden, meaning that the charges––and the case itself—are dismissed. Assuming that the charges are maintained, though, the foreign national will then have the opportunity to apply for a defense from relief, assuming that they meet the basic eligibility requirements, which are largely based on the U.S. obligations under international treaties to protect those seeking protection from persecution or torture from their home governments.

Because immigration courts are basically administrative bodies within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), they do not have the same level of independence as the federal courts that you are more familiar with (often referred to as “Article III courts, as their independence from Congress and the President is established under Article III of the U.S. Constitution). The DOJ, on the other hand, is an agency that largely falls under the President’s authority, and the judges are appointed and overseen by the Attorney General.

On May 30, 2025, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which you can think of as the immigration court system, issued internal guidance instructing that, when the DHS moves (requests) to dismiss a case (merely by saying the words “we move to dismiss”) the judge must immediately issue a decision on the motion. The guidance also included measure for speeding through fear-based claims, essentially providing less opportunity for the respondents (who, again, are usually without lawyers) to establish their eligibility. Individual reports are that the judges are evidencing additional clear, behind-the-scenes pressure to give in and grant the motions whenever they are made. As we’ve discussed previously, this leaves the respondents without any protection from arrest, and those who have been here for less than two years can then be placed into “expedited removal,” which affords them dramatically less opportunity to establish their claims.

The practice of showing up and arresting people while they attempt to comply with the law has been extended to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Quick agency explainer: in 2002, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was terminated and its functions were spread across various new agencies. Most of these fall under the DHS, which itself if subdivided into USCIS (who reviews applications for benefits—meaning immigration status), ICE (who handles the enforcement of the immigration laws), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—the people at the airports and other “ports of entry” regulating entry into the U.S. These are all distanced from the Department of State (DOS), which staffs the embassies and processes visas. (More on them below.)

Many people who are out of status might still be able to “fix” their status by applying for certain benefits, depending on their situation. Some of these people might even have removal (deportation) orders. If someone would be eligible for a green card but-for a prior removal order, they typically have to have the order first reopened by an immigration judge by moving the court to reopen the case. The DHS can oppose these motions. What happens in the end is typically that the foreign national begins a case with USCIS and, once it reaches a particular stage (say, that USCIS has approved a marriage-based petition by deciding that the marriage is valid), then the immigration judge will decide whether to reopen the case to review the green card application in court or to reopen and then terminate (basically, to dismiss) the case so that the the foreign national can complete the application process with USCIS.

What we’ve been seeing in some, but not all, parts of the country have been ICE officers appearing at the foreign national’s USCIS interviews and arresting them on the spot, before the applications can even be reviewed. Imagine there was a law requiring you to carry a drivers license with you 24/7, and if you are found guilty of not possessing one you could be arrested and sent to a Bad Place possibly forever (for purposes of this thought experiment, let’s just say Staten Island). So you go to the DMV to fix the problem by applying for a license. You’re doing the right thing, the thing that the law requires you to do. You to to the window, get the piece of paper with a number, stare at the TV waiting to see which booth you’re supposed to go to, play around with your phone, and when your number is called you go to the appropriate window. You say “hi, I’m here to apply for my license,” but before they can accept your application an officer steps out from behind the booth and arrests you for not having the license *that you are there to get. *And you’re eating red sauce for the rest of your life.

To what do we have “rule of law” when we start losing the ability to comply with the law?

if you haven’t already scrubbed your social media

Last week we provided an update on the how the sort-of student visa ban is playing out. Someone was able to get their hands on the DOS cable from June 18th implementing the policy for “expanding screening and vetting for FMJ applicants.” What we know is that: all vetting will be done by the interviewing officer; all applicants will get a notice following the interview that their applicant is being refused for lack of information [we call this a section 221(g) notice]; the officer will take as much time as needed to review the applicant’s entire online presence—not just social media; consular posts can create their own social media account to help them investigate; applicants who set their accounts to “private” will be directed to switch them to “public” (and will be seen as being evasive); they’re looking specifically for hostility to U.S. citizens & culture, support for foreign terrorists, and anti-Semitic harassment; there are no quotas; and that consular posts should consider how much capacity they have to conduct these and should scale back the frequency of interviews accordingly.

However, some cases will be prioritized for less vetting—J-1 physicians and also international students seeking to study a university where international students constitute 15% or less of total student population. For everyone else, expect more denials citing section 214(b)—technically for those who they think will try to overstay, but really that’s just their kitchen sink clause for denying anything that they don’t want to approve. Which will be a lot of applications going forward. Given that foreign student enrollment increased last year, we can expect a sharp downturn this year, and thus much more pain for universities (and thus potential students who will be partially making up this shortfall with their tuition).

And while we don’t have much to update regarding the targeting of Chinese students implied by the May 28th announcement that we touched ona few weeks ago, there have been reports of unusual vetting at interviews, including more highly detailed information regarding the applicants’ professional background, their activities in the U.S., their source of funding, and related.

that trip to Puerto Rico . . .

There are increasing reports of ICE operations in Puerto Rico, both anecdotally, via traditional reporting, their own press releases, and Bad Bunny’s instagram. 36 more countries may be added to the travel ban if they don’t clean up their act in the next two months (though that would probably make surviving judicial scrutiny a tad more difficult). The updated procedures for nonimmigrant (temporary) visa revocations are now in the Foreign Affairs Manual, And CBP’s new app, CBP link, is to be distinguished from CBP Home, which his the app all the kids are downloading now for the new trend “self-deportation.”

Matthew Blaisdell, Esq.

Sunset Immigration PLLC

219 36th Street, Ste 511

Brooklyn, NY 11232

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