In an effort to weaponize an agency that provides pathways to legal immigration, the Trump administration is arming the United States Citizenship Immigration Services (USCIS) for the first time since the agency was created.
Under new regulations published in September, USCIS special agents will be allowed to make arrests, carry firearms, and execute search and arrest warrants. This is the latest effort in Donald Trump’s agenda to systematically restrict legal immigration and strip people of their legal status. The administration’s goal is to redeploy as many parts of the federal government as possible to serve a mass deportation system that will detain and remove as many people as possible.
USCIS is Not an Immigration Enforcement Agency
USCIS is a federal agency that oversees lawful immigration. It decides whether to grant immigration applications and petitions, including applications for green cards, work authorization, asylum, citizenship, and more.
Before USCIS was created, one agency was responsible for most aspects of U.S. immigration law, including carrying out immigration enforcement and deciding immigration benefits. When Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, it separated these duties into three separate agencies: USCIS was created to focus exclusively on deciding immigration benefits, while U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were charged with law enforcement duties. Congress deliberately separated these functions to allow USCIS to more efficiently and effectively adjudicate immigration benefits, stating that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could not recombine these functions in one agency.
Keeping USCIS separate from ICE and CBP also helped to ensure that people felt comfortable coming forward and applying for immigration benefits. By blurring these lines, the Trump administration is hoping to make it harder and more intimidating for people to apply for and obtain benefits that they are eligible for under U.S. law. This move will also redirect USCIS resources away from deciding whether to grant immigration benefits, and towards supporting ICE. Applications and petitions will languish and processing times will increase. All of this is by design—this administration intentionally keeps immigrants in more vulnerable immigration statuses to limit their rights and make it easier to deport them.
Trump Weaponizes Federal Agencies for Mass Deportations
The Trump administration is using this new rule to bypass Congress and turn USCIS into another arm of ICE. It goes hand-in-hand with other recently announced USCIS policies that seek to restrict access to immigration benefits and undermine legal immigration. For example, USCIS has announced several new policies that, if implemented, will make it harder for qualified immigrants to access citizenship and may stall naturalizations on a large scale. The agency has also instituted hurdles for naturalized citizens seeking to register to vote. Under another new policy, USCIS will deny benefits to people it decides may support “anti-American” ideologies or activities.
Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has weaponized agency after agency to carry out his mass deportation agenda. For example, the Department of Justice stated it would prioritize stripping citizenship from naturalized Americans. The administration has co-opted the military: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has deployed members of the military and used Department of Defense resources for immigration enforcement. ICE has aggressively recruited local police and sheriffs, convincing over one thousand department leaders to forgo local safety priorities and become an arm of its deportation machine. DHS has even deputized Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officers to help immigration enforcement, and attempted to force the IRS as well as Medicare and Medicaid to share information with DHS for immigration enforcement purposes.
USCIS Policy Changes Undermines Citizenship and Silences Immigrants
Turning USCIS into an enforcement agency is another blatant attempt to stigmatize and harm people who are immigrants—including long-time residents who are American in every way, but on paper. USCIS’s recent policy changes undermine the very bedrock of our democracy by keeping people from seeking legal status and citizenship. If immigrants cannot access citizenship and other immigration benefits, we risk having an underclass of people subject to the whims of this administration’s loyalty tests and able to be exploited. Just look at Miller’s plans to deprive noncitizen children of education and deny citizenship to American-born children.
The Trump administration is erasing our history as a nation of immigrants and attempting to rewrite what it means to be an American by intimidating immigrants, pushing them into the shadows, and silencing dissenters.
These attacks are a reminder that our undocumented neighbors and loved ones deserve a path to citizenship. They are raising families, paying taxes, and working to make our nation thrive. They should not have to live in fear of deportation.
Published October 7, 2025 at 08:57PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/m4KLjhW
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