On December 16, 2025, President Trump significantly expanded the U.S. travel ban, adding many new countries and tightening restrictions. Effective January 1, 2026, the expanded ban built on the June 2025 order — which had applied to 19 countries — and now imposes full or partial entry restrictions on nationals from more than 40 countries. […]
Palmer Polaski Blog
Effective October 30, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced an interim final rule ending its practice of automatically extending employment authorization documents (EADs). According to DHS, the change stems from the Department’s prioritization of the “proper screening and vetting of aliens before extending the validity of their employment authorizations.” Prior to this rule, DHS […]
On December 23, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a final rule that would significantly change how the agency selects registrations for H-1B cap-subject petitions. The final rule is effective February 27, 2026, and will replace the current purely random lottery system with a weighted selection process that gives higher odds to beneficiaries […]
The H-1B visa program is the largest employment immigration option in the United States with an estimated 730,000 current foreign nationals working under the program. Every year, hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals register for the H-1B lottery hoping to receive one of the 85,000 congressionally allocated visas. On September 19, 2025, President Trump issued […]
On October 6, 2025, USCIS officers were granted enforcement powers, including the authority to carry firearms, execute warrants, make arrests, and investigate civil and criminal violations of immigration law. This marks a departure from USCIS’s longstanding role as a nonenforcement adjudicatory agency. Since this change in policy, more individuals with unexecuted removal orders are arrested […]
On Dec. 30, 2025, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to end Temporary Protected Status benefits that had been granted for hundreds of South Sudanese nationals living in the United States. The ruling is a temporary victory for immigrant advocates and a setback for the Trump administration’s broader effort to curtail the humanitarian […]
The immigration court system, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), is currently facing a backlog of millions of cases to be heard by a limited number of immigration judges. In response, the Trump Administration has made changes that could make it harder for people to win their asylum cases. In the past, it was […]
For years, most people held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention could ask an immigration judge for a bond hearing. A bond is money paid to the government to allow someone to be released from detention while their immigration case continues. However, there were always several narrow exceptions — mainly people with certain criminal […]
In a proclamation issued by President Trump and effective September 21, 2025, a new fee of $100,000 will be imposed on H-1B petitions. The fee was announced with virtually no notice and has caused significant confusion about who exactly will be required to pay it. As of yet, it appears no one has had to […]
Shortly after the Trump Administration eliminated the requirement for temporary immigration judges to possess knowledge of immigration law, the Department of Defense authorized the use of 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges. This move comes after more than 130 immigration judges have been fired, taken an early retirement offer, or have been […]