The Trump administration announced Thursday that the agency that assesses whether immigrants should be granted green cards and citizenship will add its own law enforcement agents who can carry firearms and make arrests.
The move is a major change for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency that has been kept separate from immigration arrests and enforcing deportations. USCIS assesses applications and interviews immigrants seeking to legally remain in the country by getting green cards, becoming naturalized citizens or being approved for humanitarian programs.
USCIS said in a statement Thursday that under the new rule, it will be authorized to add “special agents” who “will be empowered to investigate, arrest, and present for prosecution those who violate America’s immigration laws.” The final rule by the Trump administration will be effective 30 days from its publication, it said.
In the rule, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem grants the agency the right to hire agents who can make arrests, carry firearms, execute search and arrest warrants and who will have “other powers standard for federal law enforcement,” USCIS said in the statement.
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“USCIS has always been an enforcement agency. By upholding the integrity of our immigration system, we enforce the laws of this nation,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said in the statement. “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.”
The agency said in its statement that “USCIS will be able to more efficiently clear its backlogs of aliens who seek to exploit our immigration system through fraud, prosecute them, and remove them from the country.”
Edlow told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the change, that the agency plans to train several hundred federal law special agents who would look for immigration fraud in applications and could arrest immigrants or lawyers found to have engaged in fraud.
Critics of the new rule said that having law enforcement agents at interview sites who could potentially arrest immigrants may have a chilling effect on people’s willingness to apply for benefits they are eligible for, the WSJ reported.
The move comes as the Trump administration seeks new ways to massively increase immigration enforcement operations with the goal of deporting some 1 million immigrants per year.
The rule follows a series of other recent changes at the agency that heighten scrutiny for immigrant applicants. In a memorandum last month, USCIS said it would resume “neighborhood investigations,” which could include interviews with applicants’ neighbors and coworkers.
USCIS also updated guidance in its policy handbook in August to review and consider any “anti-American ideologies or activities,” including on social media, when deciding whether to issue immigration benefits to individuals. “Anti-American activity will be an overwhelmingly negative factor in any discretionary analysis,” the guidance said.